


Bruises & Papercuts

by shampoofaeries



Category: Mamamoo, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Actor Kim Seokjin | Jin, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arranged Marriage, Artist Kim Taehyung | V, Author Kim Namjoon | RM, Cheating, College Professor Kim Namjoon | RM, Death Threats, Denial of Feelings, Dom/sub Undertones, Domestic Violence, Don't Examine This Too Closely, Drunkenness, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Fake Marriage, Flashbacks, I'm already working on my emotions don't worry, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Lawyer Min Yoongi | Suga, Literary Editor Jung Hoseok | J-Hope, M/M, Major and minor idol appearances, Model Kim Seokjin | Jin, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recreational Drug Use, Self-Harm, Side characters will always be important, Slow Burn, Smoking, Social Media Expert Park Jimin (BTS), Time Skips, Unrequited Love, Various Kinks, comic artist jeon jungkook, implied/referenced sexual violence, legal stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:55:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 73,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22098274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shampoofaeries/pseuds/shampoofaeries
Summary: Seokjin dials. He knows the phone number by memory. He hopes he's still the same as ever: keeping everything the same it was 10 years ago. Like this number, which is, to him, the only door that's left. He clings to this idea. He's not sure if, along the way, Namjoon decided to radically change habits of his.He sure hasn't. Seokjin wants to think he hasn't. He's not the kind of person that suddenly changes.If he has, though, he could lose everything.Starting with his life.orRemember the love affair you both had when one of you went to South Korea for the summer? Yeah, the same summer where you both fell in love, fell apart, promised to stay in touch and failed because, well, life's a bitch? Well, it's coming all back, so buckle up, because its return is being followed by a shitstorm.
Relationships: Ahn Hyejin | Hwasa/Jung Wheein, Jeon Jungkook/Kim Taehyung | V, Kim Jongin | Kai/Kim Seokjin | Jin, Kim Namjoon | RM/Jackson Wang, Kim Namjoon | RM/Kim Seokjin | Jin, Min Yoongi | Suga/Park Jimin
Comments: 17
Kudos: 51





	1. Despair, Hangover, Ecstasy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [serensil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/serensil/gifts), [Epiphajin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epiphajin/gifts).



> This work is a delayed x-mas gift for my delulus, Sil and Karla.  
> Please stay with me and hug me tight until it's over.  
> I love you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Considering that he has not heard this voice for many years, he finds himself remembering his face quite easily.
> 
> His mind, blank, awaits. His hand presses his cell phone even more to his ear.
> 
> The voice speaks in a language Namjoon hasn't spoken for a while. He finds himself thinking instantly in Korean, wondering what time is it over there.
> 
> “I need your help, Namjoon,” he says. “You remember me, right?”
> 
> Namjoon recognizes every inflection in his voice, the color of it, his words in Korean and the echo they leave, revealing a language hidden beneath them.
> 
> “Please say you remember me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read the tags, please~.

_It all comes down to this._

Namjoon is not sure: all he knows is he needs to be brave, even if it’s for just ten seconds.

He needs this.

Maybe this is not the right decision. He wishes he were able to jump forward and into the future, so he could stop stressing about any possible outcome he’s about to face. This uncertainty confines him inside his present and his reality, freezing him on the spot, making him lose opportunities that someone else takes as theirs, leaves him with nothing.

Always nothing.

He won't allow it this time. It won’t happen again. At least, not today. Today he’s brave enough, Namjoon can feel it in his bones.

The reason behind this encouragement is that he finished (temporarily) his sessions with Irene. He has come a long way. He has learned a lot about himself and he’s ready to continue with his psychotherapy as soon as Irene gives birth and manages to enter a mom phase he knows nothing about, waiting for her to sort her life out. (Therapists and mental health workers have lives too, after all.) Namjoon feels proud of her, in a very analyzable way, and he calms down his fears by knowing that this suspension of his own treatment will help his therapist; thinking about it makes him feel less anxious about their temporal separation, inspiring him some kind of bravery he always had in him but always missed to see, too focused on the _bad stuff._

_I’ll see you in five months, Namjoon. In the meantime, I’m sure you’ll know what to do._

His mind and body have put enough effort every Sunday of the last 10 months, so much he’s starting to feel different, more like himself, less drifting and more grounded, giving him the strength he needs to start making little changes in his life. Somehow, he’s thankful for this short period where he’ll be flying solo, but he’s also terrified of it.

Namjoon’s face, pale by his laptop’s screen light, is kind of, just kind of, slightly showing the first signs of having second thoughts.

But he forces himself to hear his own voice inside his head: _I know better._

This kind of behavior has caused him enough pain. This carelessness about his own decisions, the constant questions on everything he does or plans; he has had to bear with this for so long, that spending a day without feeling uneasy seems like a fuzzy, distant memory of another time— even another life.

He’s been postponing his wellbeing for a long time, carrying a pain that should not be his.

The words of his therapist resonate inside his head. A drop of sweat slips down his forehead and threatens to get inside his right eye. He runs his hand over his face, tasting the saltiness of his skin.

_Believe in yourself. You already took the first steps. You will deal with the rest as it comes._

Even though he’s not sure, his index finger hovers over the touchpad of his laptop. If he looks closely, squinting his eyes, he’ll see his hands trembling, still unsure of what he’s about to do.

So he doesn’t look at his hands nor his computer— not completely.

He’ll do it. He just needs a little push. This is the best for him, for his pain: he can picture himself resting and sending his worries away…

The image of a relieved self, resting like the heavy sleeper he is, carefree, relaxed, is all it takes. Namjoon clicks on the touchpad and the website refreshes.

The home page of the store's website appears on the screen and, in a blink of an eye, fear is all he knows. His lifeforce threatens to escape through his lungs; his eyes, opened wide, don’t move an inch from the screen.

He knows what’s next. He’ll turn off his laptop and pretend this didn’t happen. He knows he won’t feel brave enough to do it all over again. He’s not ready to change, this must be a sign from the universe telling him he’s not ready at all. Fuck the confident ideas he had just a moment ago, he’s not ready to fly solo, no ma’am.

He thinks of Irene.

_Trust. Change. Move._

A pop-up startles him, and he flinches.

Order made! Your **AirComfort Deluxe mattress** (Size: Full)

will be arriving shortly to the direction you provided.

Follow your order here.

If there are complaints, comments or doubts,

call (xxxx) xxx-xxx. We'll listen!

_Your comments make our brand better._

(Unfortunately, we don’t offer any kind of refunds.

Check our policies here.)

Namjoon smiles. Fully aware of the relief he’s feeling while he reads the pop-up again, he sighs. His face lights up with a light of its own.

He stretches himself as long as he is after closing his laptop and putting it away. His back greets him with a few cracks as if it happened to be aware of the recent purchase, not wanting to spend another night on the horrible mattress it's now enemies with.

He rests his hands on the left side of the chair's backrest and turns in that direction to stretch the muscles of his torso, making his spine creak. He repeats the motion in the opposite direction and sighs again. The relief he’s feeling now is also physical, and he’s happy to find himself feeling it wholly for the first time in months.

From a corner of the room, his samoyed watches him.

“Monie,” he addresses him, leaving his chair. The dog closes its snout, paying full attention. Monie tilts his head, curious. “This will change our lives. You’ll see. This is the first step. We’re turning over a new leaf, just as Irene said.”

Monie barks and Namjoon bends over to ruffle the hair around his head. He runs his hands over its ears, folding them in a way Monie doesn’t like. The dog takes some distance from him, getting away from his grip, shaking its body. If there was a list of things Monie doesn’t like, the first one would be humans touching his ears. The following would be weasels, then tangerines, then being chased and/or scolded when he’s clearly guilty of eating human food from the cupboard. Not in a particular order, he hates all of the above just the same.

Namjoon often wonders about the resemblance between him and Monie. He has given it much thought. In December they’ll be reaching the 5-year-together milestone, and they sure have shared their fair amount of stories and moments together, Namjoon thinks there must be things he learned from his pet and things that, unfortunately, Monie has learned from him. Bad habits Namjoon hasn’t corrected, like eating greasy human food when nobody’s looking, staying up late howling at the moon, or the fierce gardening he does when he’s anxious, much to Namjoon’s dismay.

Maybe, by pure chance, they were meant to belong to each other. And maybe their traits and personalities were already similar by the moment Namjoon decided to adopt the little furball he’d later name Monie.

Namjoon combs its hair with his fingers, making it look as if the hair ruffle struggle never happened. He fixes his collar, which almost disappeared with the dog’s frantic shake. Monie lets his head be kissed by Namjoon and looks at him as soon as it feels Namjoon’s nose near his.

“You’ll see.”

Namjoon's phone buzzes once, twice, then the screen turns off.

He walks by the frozen foods’ aisle, one of his favorite places to visit and one of the most poetic places he knows: here, the temperature runs wildly cold, the aisle by itself refuses to follow any kind of thermodynamic law and, oddly enough, it makes him feel safe.

Namjoon is not the worst cook, but he is not the person that should stay inside a kitchen for more than fifteen minutes. Still, he has to feed in order to keep on living, so frozen food usually helps him to do so. Frozen food is comfort food, he’d always say, if asked.

Occasionally, he gets sick of its taste. Or its lack of taste. So he waits until Saturday and drives to the nearest supermarket in Lewes to buy groceries, spending hours doing so, just for fun.

In his cart, there's a bottle of red wine and one of rosé, dry and wet food for Monie, frozen food (the kind he hasn't learn to hate yet), tea, enough coffee to help him wake up in the morning and cleaning supplies that he constantly forgets to buy.

Now, though, these have become more, much more than necessary.

Namjoon picks up his sweater to smell it and regrets it instantly. He could totally go with this human/dog/humidity scent for two or three more days, but now he knows better. He is to wash loads and loads of clothes he’s been postponing. White hairs —Monie’s— can be seen through the fabric of his sweater, and even though he doesn’t mind, maybe his students do. Maybe his colleagues do mind, both the dog hair and the smell. Maybe they noticed…

_God, the smell. The post-break-up image I’ve been showing. The long face. Everything._

How could he be so negligent with himself? Namjoon _needs_ this change. With winter coming next month, he’ll need to put his best effort on the whole “turning on a new leaf” plan. He needs to sort his pain and worries without Irene, clean up his house and start over, moving on, with his love life.

He just started with the pain— the physical one, at least. The mattress will do a big difference in his daily mood and the number of hours he already sleeps. The next thing on the list is the house and it includes Monie. He’ll have to give him a bath soon, but he tries not to think too much about this. Monie also hates getting his fur wet.

About his love life, though… he’ll probably wait until Irene’s back before he gets his hands dirty on the matter.

He doesn’t want to think about it. The thought of it irritates him. Having lost control about something so precious to him— the way he loves, the way he gets involved with people, his trust— he can’t stand it. The idea of hearing voices around him whispering in a derogatory and critical language about what he could have done better or worse, all of this infuriates him.

“There was no way of knowing,” he whispers to himself. Irene said it first. He’s just repeating it, hoping it’ll start to make sense soon.

Namjoon pushes the cart through the pet supplies section of the supermarket and lets his mind get distracted between prices, colors and plans he has for himself and Monie.

But it’s only a matter of time before he finds himself thinking about his colleagues and his students over Brighton College.

There is a moment in the life of a college professor where the road splits in two: one road leads you to become the most beloved professor; the other one leads you to become the most hated professor, the one every student talks about at some point, often in a derogatory way. Namjoon doesn't want the second one. He doesn't mind about the first, to be honest. But he’s currently stranded in the one he wants the less, and the first road has never seemed to him more appealing than ever.

That's why he needs to move. He’s just in time to rise above the recent shitstorm he got caught in.

_You need to build a place where regret, conflict and self-accusing thoughts don’t exist._

He wants to keep a low profile. The only thing he desires the most right now— apart from eating something else that is not frozen— is to return to that happy, calm place he learned to love, around two years ago, right before everything started.

Namjoon never thought his career as an academic and a barely-rising author would be in danger. He’s still young. He’s almost hitting his thirties but that’s being young in the literary world. He knows he has a reputation to mend and clings to a blind hope that tells him it won’t be as hard as it looks.

This is just the first step.

Slowly, he’ll recover stability. His routine, his tranquility. It’s a matter of time— it must be a matter of time — so that he can be forgiven or forgotten socially (whatever comes first), and the rest will come later.

Just like Irene said. Just like he’s been repeating to himself like a mantra.

Namjoon is not a person that makes decisions without first having gone through all the possibilities inside his mind. He's a person often described as moderate, composed and firm, just like the poems he writes. His relationships tend to follow these three characteristics. He's thorough, he doesn't goof around and tries hard to keep everything in harmony.

Still, people caught him slipping. The voices often speak, loud and clear, and it’s a habit of theirs to choose a prey to chase and haunt; they meddle, nosey as they are, and peek through holes that are not meant to be discovered. They bite— they bite oh so hard— and they don’t let go until there’s no more blood to taste.

Namjoon slipped. With his head in the clouds, no orientation and blindfolded with love, he slipped and fell. Hard.

He fell— oh so hard— in love with the wrong person.

Absorbed in his imaginary shopping list, Namjoon stops in front of the canned food section, not realizing he's been wandering inside the supermarket for hours.

The cart vibrates a couple of times under the touch of his hands but he tries to ignore his phone, which remains face down, between a box of dog snacks and two bottles of beer that he'll try later.

He’s seriously thinking about buying what he needs to cook lasagna, but a war flashback hits him, reminding him that he knows better than this. The best option is to buy the necessary ingredients to make a simple pasta that will last for two days and then —he knows himself too well— he’ll be back on his frozen food diet.

Namjoon drops a packet of organic rice inside the shopping cart and gives up. He’s only human and he’s not able to ignore his phone forever, no matter how hard he tries. With a half-smile, he unlocks his phone. The front camera greets him with his face, so he presses the start button a few times to remove himself from his own sight.

 _Hoseok won't forgive me if I leave him on read once again,_ he laughs mentally, checking his notifications, sliding his thumb across the screen, from top to bottom.

The smile on his face fades away. He reads the text— the texts, the missed calls, the mails he hasn’t answered in months— and it takes a whole load of strength to stop himself from answering the latest one.

He locks the phone at the same time that his feet are on the move again, leading him blindly through the aisles.

Not paying attention, eyes glued to the black mirror inside his shopping cart, like a black hole he wants to jump into, he gets frightened at the thought of having that voice inside his head, repeating the words of the text he just got:

_Will I see you today at the reading?_

Namjoon pays no mind to his heart, suddenly running amok; he realizes, though, he’s not bringing enough beer to the reading he forgot he’s to attend as an important member of the Division of Literature at the college he teaches in.

He’s not channeling his inner Irene anymore.

He’s flying solo for the first time in ten months, and he’s burning. His wings, attached to his aching back, are melting. The clock above the supermarket checkout is ticking, telling him it’s almost time to leave his comfort zone.

As he pays for the items he just bought, his train of thought runs over an idea that never fails to lift his mood.

When everything seems to fail, flowers don't. Flowers always stay true to him.

Even when he feels stranded inside these dark days where he struggles to find comfort in the things he likes, he has hope. If this shitstorm is what he needed to become a better person, if this is the cosmos’ will or the will of a greater Creator up above, twisting and turning his story so he can bloom, it’s okay. He’ll bloom alright. Just like the flowers he grows, he’ll do it. And it’ll all be worth it.

But if it isn’t worth it and the ultimate will of the cosmos or the will of that Creator bears the name of the man that made a mess of him with the force of a deadly hurricane, if all of this is part of a sick joke that’ll lead to nothing but unhappiness, then he’s going to lose it. He’s going to give up, change his name, move to another planet. He’ll be done.

Namjoon sighs.

As with everything, he can't be sure of the reason behind his worries.

Maybe they’re just worries.

Maybe this normally happens to more people, and he has this kind of luck.

Maybe the only thing he needs to think about is the flowers. His flowers.

He soon finds tranquility on this.

Namjoon puts the paper bags and boxes inside his truck’s trunk without much care. Looking at the sky, he hopes it doesn’t rain too soon.

By the time Namjoon arrives at the flower shop, he’s already thinking of an outfit to wear tonight.

 _For myself, he thinks,_ turning the ignition off. _Not for him._

Namjoon doesn't write poems about every curve, change of light, or miracle he’s fortunate to witness. He doesn't write while he waits for the next train whenever he’s using the subway, either.

There are many things poets don’t do, contrary to popular belief.

Namjoon blames it on romantic movies about heartbreak, with hopeless romantic poets and sappy plots that people enjoy just because that kind of suffering lasts only until you leave the movie theater.

There, happy endings are always in order. The poet finds their soulmate, their inner power, the perfect muse. But poetry doesn’t work like this. Poetry is not scribbling notes on a well-worn notebook, shedding a tear on a side, smelling a flower on the other.

(He'll never admit it, even though this last description of poetry hits very close to home; he's a poetry purist.)

Almost like a ritual, he doesn’t write in another place that is not behind his typewriter, an ancient black machine that his mother gifted to him when he graduated. His desk, surrounded by flowers and nothing else, is the only furniture in his Poetry and Tea room, aside from the chair he sits on for hours and the scrambled pieces of paper laying on the floor, a floor that survives only under the promise of being swept any time soon.

In that room, next to his bedroom, he’s free to think in a language he’s worked on for years. Sitting there, facing the window, the clouds, and his garden, he sets his words free and tries his best to let the world know what he feels and sees, through landscapes painted by hands and colors that depict nothing but beauty.

Sometimes, Namjoon waits for a poem to arrive like a leaf falling from the top of a tree, like a daisy left leafless by an inquisitive heart, like a muse that sings, dances and whispers directly into his ears words that justify all the grief, pain and discouragement that overwhelm the human heart; (a phenomenon yet to be explained to this day, a mission every poet should have— Namjoon truly believes so).

On cloudy days, a poem comes to his mind as images of a dream, condensed, fused: images transposed one after another, and this puzzles him, filling him with fear of breaking them or smudging them all over, finding himself having no other mission but to decipher it, since he, himself, knows that inside all that imagery, his heart is pounding, aching, demanding to be heard.

So he thinks. And wonders. And ponders.

Namjoon spends days, afternoons, nights, thinking. After some moons pass, he surrenders and delegates his creative process to his pillow. When he's calm enough, accompanied by the fear of losing his words, carrying the condensed imagery inside his head and a cup of hot sakura tea between his hands, he stops every thought and lets himself feel.

His poems share his type of blood, his dreams. Every muscle he uses when he’s walking towards his Poetry and Tea room sync perfectly with his steps, setting up the tempo of his thoughts. His body vibrates, just like the walls inside his home when he moves and closes his room’s door. Once he’s set up in front of the flower jar, smelling its scent and being gifted with a precious sight of colors and shapes, he feels ready.

Loneliness doesn’t exist there. Not inside that room.

The ink pressed to the paper he straightens up is a carbon copy of his fingertips. The ink wounds on the paper are his words, they carry his scent. He makes them breathe, crafting them with such firmness that anyone would think they have a spine, limbs and a head (or two) of their own.

He’s not aware, but his verses, his poems, are alive even before they’re properly written.

“I’m here whenever you’re ready, mister Kim.”

Surrounded by flowers, Namjoon is not aware of the poems he’s already writing inside his mind. In the middle of his favorite flower shop, he stands still, almost feeling like he’s home. He takes his time, peeking here and there, thinking he’ll find something that will lift his spirits.

Namjoon had thought about buying a flower arrangement that would bring a whole season to his home. He thought about bringing winter early, since it’s his favorite season, and he found a pamphlet stuck on his windshield, announcing his favorite flower shop had a new flower arrangement named Winter Hedgerow. And it made him smile. He pictured himself sitting at his desk, seeing the bright yellow flowers, feeling calm at the sight of the pale pink ones and smiling brightly at the vibrant purple buds he’s usually attracted to, but something steals his attention.

He’s still standing in the middle of the flower shop when he spots the most beautiful flower arrangement he’s ever seen.

He sees nothing more. Not even the face of the shopkeeper, Delilah, who’s been following him since he arrived and now is happy to see he’s already coming out his usual trance.

This is the one he wants. His heart is telling him so. His body, walking towards the cash register, also wants it.

It has no card nor description of the arrangement, which could only mean one thing.

“Do you have it for sale?” Namjoon asks warily, getting closer to the flowers so he can smell them. (Funnily enough, this gesture is one he’s picked up from Monie’s.) He knows the answer by the face Delilah’s making, but clings onto hope, as he’s been doing lately.

“I’m so sorry, mister Kim,” the shopkeeper offers a heartfelt apology, lifting both hands firmly pressed together against each other in front of her face. She’s really sorry. Namjoon is his favorite customer, but this can't be a worse time to order a flower arrangement. Fall is a difficult season. They both know this. “I could make you this arrangement, but it’d take more than three weeks for it to be ready, let alone arrive at your home… You see, we’re cramped up with orders and…”

Namjoon can’t help the slightly sad smile he’s giving her.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs, disappointed. “What’s its name? I can’t see the card.”

_“Moonlight.”_

He smiles again. Sadly.

“Lovely name.”

The shopkeeper smiles too and rushes to talk him into an offer she thinks he won’t reject.

“You could buy the flowers separately and arrange them at home.” He’s instantly interested, placing his arm on the top of the counter, almost as if daring her to convince him. “You could practice some flower arranging, hm? Two birds, one stone.”

“I’m not sure…”

“You could even name it something of your own,” she suggests, lifting both of her eyebrows. “If I recall correctly, you’re a poet. You’ll come up with a lovely name for it, and I’m sure you’re a natural in this flower arrangement thing.”

Namjoon raises one of his eyebrows and offers her a candid smile, with both of his dimples showing.

“I’d call it a lil’ moonlight,” he laughs, making her laugh too. “A _minimoonlight.”_

“See?” she says, softly clapping her hands. “A natural!”

While they keep coming up with goofy names and silly ideas for the flower arrangement skills that Namjoon is about to develop, he gives her enough bills to cover the price of the flowers he’s taking home with him.

The woman hands him the flowers by the stem and bids him goodbye, but not before reminding him about the winter sale they always do, a few days away from Christmas Eve. Namjoon thanks her for the information and leaves the store with a bouquet of white roses, purple freesias, and pistachio sprigs. He's tempted to smell them, but guesses it'll be better to wait and smell them once they're fully arranged.

Even though the sky looks gloomier as ever, Namjoon is now in good spirits until he thinks of Monie and hurries himself to get home, trying to remember if he put food in his bowl before leaving or if there will be a frenzied beast demanding to be fed when he gets home.

Driving carefully, he parks outside his home and gets mentally ready to exit the vehicle, knowing he’ll have to make several trips in order to empty his trunk completely. But he doesn't move at all.

His hand, on the contrary, is faster than his wits. He holds the phone and unlocks it, regretting his decision instantly.

But there’s nothing.

There's nothing on his phone, except a notification from that Picross game he's addicted to.

Having no messages should give him the peace of mind he's used to. And he's calm, but he's also confused.

Looks like the man decided to give up.

He should be calm.

 _I am,_ Namjoon tells himself.

Then why is he feeling a sudden pang of sadness in his chest?

_Aren't I?_

He finishes unloading all the stuff he just bought and sits next to Monie, who is eating at a worrying pace. Apologizing one more time, Namjoon knows better and doesn't pet him until he's finished. He waits by his side, looking at the flowers he gifted himself, laying on the dinner table.

This feeling. This damn feeling, he knows it so well. It’s been inside his chest all this time, ever since he met the man he shouldn’t have fallen in love with. And he knows what’s next: thoughts of loneliness and emptiness that will lead him through a path where he’ll lose his strength and dignity in a blink of an eye.

He wants to answer the texts.

Though he thinks he’s strong enough not to do so, he’s not sure he can make it through the poetry reading he’s to attend without messing things up. He’s flying solo, after all. Mistakes can be made.

_Trust yourself._

Monie turns to look at him, tilting his head. His snout is covered with wet food and Namjoon senses him worrying about his master.

“I'm fine, Mon,” Namjoon restrains himself from petting him. “I’m not alone, hm? I have you.”

His dog sits in his hindquarters and looks at his bowl of food. He looks at his master, only to return his sight back to his food and continue eating non-stop.

“…aaand you have your food," he chuckles. Monie barks under his breath. Unbothered, he finishes his food and leaves his bowl empty.

Namjoon takes a look outside through the sliding glass door that leads to his backyard. The gray concrete stone that covers the stairs is wet. If it's raining, maybe he can ditch them all and stay home, watching a samurai movie and eating caramel popcorn.

That’d be the dream.

He sighs, still looking at the clouds, and asks himself when was it that he became this lousy, coward, impulsive man.

Irene’s voice returns to him just in time.

_Recovering from a bad love story takes time. It’s a long way. You’ll want to give up. Giving up is easy, keep this in mind. Moving on, moving forward, hurts, but it also heals. One is faster and heavier than the other. But the outcome will be something you’ll cherish as yours because choosing to move on is something you’re giving to yourself. Like a gift._

Making up his mind, he sits up. His dog looks at him from his bed, about to take a piggy nap.

Namjoon takes the flowers from the table and the garden pliers that rest against the cristal door.

“Flowers first.”

Climbing the steps two at a time, he’s in his Poetry and Tea room in seconds.

Flowers, like Monie and his poetry, never miss to cheer him up.

Alcohol, though, does miss and fails miserably in this task.

It's not one of his worst enemies. But it's not an ally on this war he's been battling on since he met him.

Risking it all, knowing that his poor tolerance for alcohol is ready to jeopardize the evening, he drinks the night away.

There is no way he’ll stand being sober here, anyways.

Some poets are previously selected to read their work but some poets are not meant, by any means, to read theirs. But everybody knows that at poetry readings, they always manage to squeeze in their verses, stealing the mic or acting stupid when they entitle themselves with false courage and decide to ruin the reading even if it’s only for five minutes. They fight for the spotlight so much and so hard it is pathetic, painful to watch, messy enough for Namjoon not to care. It’s a spotlight, after all. He gets it. You never know who’s listening. They must have a reason, a very desperate one, to lower their dignity this bad.

(Man, is he biting his tongue today or what.)

Namjoon wasn’t worried. He had planned not to read his latest work and, if needed, he’d ask one of the hostesses to hand him the latest poems he published in the Brighton College Ga-Ztate of the Arts. (He’ll be damned, he even dreads the name they gave to his Alma Mater’s gazette.) And so he did. Namjoon read some of his old poems and surely pushed his most dramatic voice so he could win time. But they asked for more. Oh, they always ask for more. One of his coworkers (he promised himself never to forget this hate crime and its doer: it was that weird dude from Plastics) asked if he had any new poems to share with the crowd. Then, after chugging down a shot glass of tequila (a ritual given to the scheduled poets), he offered to read from memory some haikus he’d been working on in the past, still unpublished.

The few people that were paying attention went wild. Not many people often felt like sharing something so personal, never mind from memory. Maybe it was the tequila (he understood its purpose then), but he felt brave and did well, considering his new state of nervousness and drunkenness.

No one applauded him. Not because they hated his work, no. They did this with every single author. At poetry readings— artistic evenings _(a safe place to drink with a good excuse without worrying about getting judged,_ Namjoon later ranted with a colleague before disappearing and merging with the beige wallpaper on the walls)— nobody ever applauds. While an author reads out loud, the public looks at the ceiling as if looking for the shape of each word, or they dance in their own spot in silence to the tempo of the poem; sometimes the public is interested and you can tell people is sharing looks, qualifying the greatness of the author or declaring the absolute waste of time their poems are.

By the time the reading is about to be over, he is officially fed up with poetry. He’s tired of standing up and the silence, broken only by the words of someone reading out loud a very bad poem about time and history. The wooden clock over the fireplace lets him know that it's barely ten o'clock at night, so he goes straight to the drinks table and pours himself another tequila.

The event is getting too long, and he realizes this when he bottoms up his fourth shot of tequila. He didn’t eat his dinner before leaving home, he suddenly didn't have the time, and still, he managed to arrive quite early because his cab app made him believe he would be late.

Namjoon is regretting not having anything in his stomach except alcohol that’ll betray him any time soon.

It's been a while since the last time he took his truck to poetry readings organized by the Robinsons.

This is because the sidewalk outside their place is problematic. People often get parking tickets there, and nobody knows why. Also, there's not much space on that side of the street nor the opposite, and parking far from their house is not an option. He'd probably be worrying all night, thinking he'd gotten a parking ticket or a flat tire. Namjoon decided to play it safe, even if this meant he was to spend an hour and a half with Raphaella and Georgina Robinson, the hostesses of the event, two poets already established within the literary world, one of them being the author of polemic yet beautiful erotic poems, and the other one authoring a vast collection of reviews written in a prose so lovely and full of poison you’d wish they’d never finish. Although Namjoon’s work has never appeared in any of them, this doesn’t mean he’d kill to be there.

He trusts their friendship, but he has so much less to say about their tongues. Specially Raphaella’s.

With Georgina, the situation is different. They've worked together for years, and Namjoon knows she’s not the kind of person to rely on your deepest worries. She's a box full of secrets with no key. So he's been drifting away from her for the lasts six months, accepting the consequences. This pissed her considerably, Namjoon noticed; perhaps that’s why he forgot about the invitation in the first place. He’s sure Georgina is the kind of woman that holds grudges easily, though, so he didn’t hesitate to attend.

Surprisingly, not one of them brought it up when he arrived, and their talk was as casual as ever.

_Some things are better left forgotten._

Namjoon asked her about her projects and then received the same question, which he declined to answer with a smile. That seemed to irk her, but he didn't care. The only mindset he had in order to survive this evening was one of secrecy and silence. Sensing this, Georgina gave up.

Raphaella, on the other hand, locked her gaze on him the whole evening, with a question aiming from her lips, waiting for the right moment to be shot directly at him. But Namjoon was faster and proceeded to mingle with College colleagues and one or two students that felt bold enough to attend a reading they weren’t invited to.

Even here, in a place where it's next to impossible to go unnoticed, a place where people would throw punches with the only purpose of getting the spotlight; even here, surrounded by people he has known since he was a student at Brighton College or since he started teaching there, surrounded by love stories that intertwine people with madness and broken hearts, immersed in unsolved sexual tension and passive-aggressiveness that is almost too much to be true; even here, Namjoon can't seem to forget a little detail that's been roaming his mind from the first moment he stepped inside the Robinson house.

 _He’s not here._ He hasn’t seen him. He thought that, as always, after all the drama involving ignored texts and declined calls, the most natural thing would be to find him sharing a glass of red wine with Raphaella, or reading out loud one of his latest columns, caring very, very little of the theme of the reading, being poetry and not journalism.

But it seems like he, too, knew better.

Namjoon laughs behind his glass, licking the taste of tequila inside his mouth.

_Fool._

He can't help feeling guilty. Maybe one of the reasons he isn’t here is because he didn’t answer his texts.

Now that he’s come to think of it, he has no idea what the rest of the messages say.

Curious and drunk enough, Namjoon tries to reach his phone inside the right pocket of his jeans. Patting it, he only finds his house keys. He tries with the left one and there it is, in his mind, the image of his phone on the desk, inside his Poetry and Tea room, by his typewriter, miles away from here.

 _I left it before leaving home. I scheduled the cab and went down to put food on Monie's bowl, then I forgot to get it. It was upstairs. I paid in advance…_

There’s nothing more inside his cardigan’s pockets than a mint and cookie crumbs.

“Let me guess. You just lost your phone,” he hears, instantly forgetting about his wallet and the recent worry troubling his mind: he has no way to return home.

“I left it at home,” Namjoon murmurs, turning around to face him. An empty beer bottle falls when pushed by his heel.

Was it his’? He doesn’t know.

_Some things are better left forgotten._

“Ah,” he grins, approaching him. “Typical Joon.”

Namjoon takes a moment, not because he wants to but because he needs it, to see the man standing in front of him, holding a glass of wine. Full. Dangerously tilted, a menace to the khaki sweater he’s wearing. The man places a closed beer in front of Namjoon, still grinning.

And though he knows he’s close to getting shitfaced, he accepts the beer anyways.

The man looks at him as if he were waiting for something.

“You haven't just arrived,” Namjoon observes, drinking the beer. It's tasty and still cold. Namjoon looks at him once more top to bottom, stopping to look at his broad shoulders and his mouth, curved and full of wine, framed by his thick lips.

“No,” he replies, with a carelessness that makes Namjoon lock his jaw. “I heard your poems. The haikus?”

_Oh._

He doesn't want to ask. He will not ask. He does not care.

“What… what did you think… about them?”

Namjoon can imagine Irene smacking her hand to her forehead, _hard._ He himself, in his mind, is doing the same.

_Damn it._

“I’m amazed, to say the least,” the man takes a sip from his glass and tries to oxygenate it by moving it in a circular motion. Namjoon knows this is of no use if the glass is that full, but he’s not going to say a thing. _He doesn’t know how to drink wine. He probably doesn’t even like it,_ Namjoon thinks. _But I’ll be damned. He knows he looks classy as fuck, and he’s enjoying it._ “You know your writing is my favorite. I’m biased by you, you already know this, so I didn’t pay much attention to anyone else, but Namjoon… haikus?”

He whistles, tilting his head. Namjoon tries to distract himself from the heat that’s flushing his cheeks.

“Just when I thought you couldn’t impress me more, you go there and…” the man doesn’t finish the sentence, interrupting himself with another sip. “I’m amazed.”

He needs to get out or he’ll lose it. He needs to get out of his reach or it’ll be game over.

“You’ve been amazed before,” Namjoon bites back, trying to stay calm. “Don’t worry. Apparently, it’ll wear off soon.”

His response is a bold but sharp laugh.

“No, Namjoon, it won’t,” he grins again, looking directly into his eyes. “It hasn’t worn off. It’ll never do. I’m assuming you know this, too.”

By the moment he lowers his voice and takes a step even closer to Namjoon, Namjoon closes his eyes. He’s weak, he’s drunk, and this is another mistake that he’ll remember for months, if not years.

“Jackson,” Namjoon calls him out, trying to stand still and away from him. “You know it’s over.”

“It _is_ over. Don’t you think I know that?” Jackson snaps, raising his voice just a little. “You’re ghosting me.”

_Oh._

As puzzled as he is, Namjoon takes his own time to breathe and get it together. Difficult task around Jackson, but it’s worth the try.

“Let me guess. You’re too _hurt_ to answer your damn phone, so you’re ghosting me, that’s easier, right? Why won’t you let me talk to you?”

Maybe it’s the tequila, brought by someone he doesn’t even know, but Namjoon’s chest burns on the inside like a motherfucker. His stomach is a knot of anger and pain and he wants to storm out of the room but his gaze is locked to his’— Jackson’s—, and this, too, hurts like a motherfucker.

“Let me, please—”

Namjoon’s gaze can barely make it off of Jackson’s eyes, managing to escape by miracle. He looks up over Jackson’s shoulder and his eyes meet at a face that looks back at him from the other end of the room, curiously.

Raphaella smiles, sipping her red wine. She lifts the glass and points Jackson with it. Namjoon observes how she walks to her wife, Georgina, who’s leaning over a table, debating what Namjoon imagines should be about metric or gender studies.

Georgina’s expression changes at the moment Raphaella whispers something in her ear, and it’s a matter of time for the pairs of eyes around them to follow. 

They’re the hostesses, after all; they’re the voices and the eyes of this night.

“You can’t be serious,” Namjoon spits, wrath in his voice.

“Love…” Jackson's hand reaches for his right arm, scorching.

_Oh._

He’s short of breath. He can’t breathe. He can’t look at him, or else he will… 

_Oh, no._

In a hurry, Namjoon looks for the exit, only to find himself in the hall of the Robinson’s, with the world spinning around him. The burning sensation in his chest triggers his anxiety once more, leaving him desperate, in need to figure out what’s the corridor, set of stairs or door that will lead him to the bathroom before he bursts into tears. Or worse, vomit.

“Professor Kim?” A young man sees him struggle and intercepts him, taking him by the shoulder to what he guesses is the bathroom.

Jackson is faster.

“He’s with me,” Jackson cuts him, interrupting their contact by standing between both of them. Namjoon shakes himself from Jackson’s grip, too unstable to hold himself straight; his blonde hair falls down his forehead, shadowing his face, pale and full of anger.

“I’m not with you,” he repeats, incapable of fighting back the tears. “I was never with you, Wang.”

_Oh, no, no._

“Namjoon.”

“Go away,” he spits again, pushing him aside. He knows where all this anger comes from. He's been holding back every night he spent awake, heart and mind a mess, writing words he'll never get to see because he doesn't deserve them. “The nerve you must have to call me love, to come to me and ask for a chance to speak, you and I both know the shit you’ll say, you lying fuck.”

The young man who tried to help Namjoon a moment ago is still close by, ready to jump and stop the fight he swears is about to happen. His hands, full of rings and expensive jewelry, catch Namjoon's attention. Every single poet, artist, and writer is there, around, watching.

Offering a hand, Jackson speaks. “C’mon, Joon. Let me take you home.”

“Home,” Namjoon laughs, walking towards the main door. He’s done. He’s given up. “Don’t you dare talk about home, asshole.”

He opens the main entrance of the house and the door knocks against the inner wall. Namjoon is careful enough not to trip and roll down the stairs of the porch so he steps down slowly and waits there, not knowing what to do.

His stomach is hurting, he’s dizzy and he hasn’t cursed this bad, all in one night, since highschool. His inner teenager must be proud. His inner old, wise man, combined with the sweet but firm image of Irene, is frowning.

Namjoon thinks of going back after a while, ask Georgina or Raphaella for their main phone so he can order a cab, but going back there is probably not a good idea.

_Low profile my ass._

He almost wants to laugh, but nothing comes out of his mouth, not even the vomit he felt coming a few minutes ago, just at the same moment he heard Jackson...

Calling me _Love._

Namjoon runs his cardigan sleeve through his eyes. He ends up cleaning his face completely, noticing that he hasn't stopped crying. A shiver runs down his spine. It’s the first week of November and it's started to get chilly by night, reminding him he left his coat inside.

A hand grabs his forearm and Namjoon fights to let go by instinct until he recognizes the hand of the young man that helped him inside the house.

Feeling completely drunk, lonely and pathetic, Namjoon tries to smile. He finds himself feeling secured by his grip and the random sight of a flower he’s fond of.

“That’s a lovely gardenia you have there,” he compliments, pointing at the pocket of the man’s coat.

The young man— a boy, now that Namjoon can see him through eyes that don’t weep— smiles back.

While he offers his cell phone to order a cab and Namjoon enters his address on the app, the boy mentions that usually, nobody recognizes the flowers he wears in the pocket of his suits. The explanation keeps Namjoon intrigued until his cab arrive and it parks carefully, parallel to the sidewalk they’re standing on.

“How can I pay you back?” Namjoon asks, lowering the window on his side of the vehicle. The cab driver waits patiently; it’s better for him: this ride is already expensive and every minute counts. “I don’t have cash nor goods to pay you.”

“Don’t worry,” he’s still smiling, now waving his hands. The rings sparkle under the fluorescent lights and Namjoon looks at him, paying attention to the number of details the man is wearing. “Be safe. Drink enough water. Rest.”

“Tell me your name,” Namjoon asks, knowing it’s time to leave. “You deserve more than just being remembered by ‘the guy with the gardenia’.”

Laughing, the boy says he doesn’t mind. He’s okay with helping. Life will pay him back eventually, he explains with a playful grin.

Namjoon insists. “Please, do tell me your name.”

Sighing, the boy steps back from the cab and bows a little.

“Vante.”

“Vante,” Namjoon repeats, slowly. “Thank you, Vante.”

On his way home, Namjoon cries some more. Quietly, not to disturb his cab driver. Not that he cares, though.

_Calling me Love, pretending he’s still there._

_Saying I’m ghosting him, as if he wasn’t aware of the shit I’ve gone through to rise above this desire of answering him, of going back to him, of forgiving…_

Namjoon arrives at his place, thanks the driver and exits the vehicle. He takes a look at his house before entering and rushes to get in since it’s gotten colder.

As he enters his house he makes sure to close every door and window, not turning any light on.

All he can think of is a word. A place. 

_Home._

The one surrounding him now, making him feel at ease, even in this darkness.

Not a home of guys with a huge need to have a second life, not wanting to admit they're empty inside, miserably unhappy with the first one, having previously fucked it in every possible way. Not a home of guys who lie about being single until it is impossible to keep hiding the marriage they’re bound to forever.

His home. Not Jackson's. Not now, not ever.

Namjoon’s Home. Namjoon’s and Monie’s home. No one else's.

He vows this to himself. To what he believes in the most.

_Love._

He drinks his water and some painkillers before he lays down in his bed to rest. Before sleeping he tries to search on Facebook the name of the boy, but he's too drunk to remember and he falls asleep immediately.

_Some things are better left forgotten._

He forgets, too, to close the backyard's crystal door. Deep in his slumber, he’s unconscious and he ignores the noise Monie makes, howling at the moon, running all over his garden, digging holes and murdering a rose bush Namjoon's been taking care of since last summer.

He rests peacefully, not allowing himself to be disturbed. He doesn't wake up through the night and his dreams are easy to be forgotten, maybe for being too much for his conscious mind to handle.

Once he wakes up, finding the corners of his eyes wet, he realizes he cried in his sleep.

Namjoon's alarm clock goes off at the same time his phone blasts his ringtone. He doesn't remember removing the silent mode of it. Then again, he doesn't remember many things that happened yesterday.

Except for that promise he made to himself.

He looks at the red numbers on his alarm clock and sighs. Six o'clock. Sun is not even up yet.

Namjoon opens his eyes and blinks hard to get rid of the drowsiness he’s in. He has no idea who could be calling at this hour, nor the coincidence— poetic, he would say in another circumstance— of his alarm clock and his ringing tone teaming up to wake him up on a Sunday morning.

Yawning, he forces his body to wake up with a long stretch. He turns at his sides a couple of times to make his back creak. Mentally, he counts the days for the new bed to arrive.

He picks up, half-lidded and with his mind still glued to his pillow and his own dreamland.

“Morn…?”

“Namjoon-ah.”

His blood runs cold. Of all the voices he expected to hear, he identifies this one as one that hits right into his heart and soul like a well-aimed arrow.

The voice calling his name makes him curse the moment he decided to drink the night away with tequila. Nausea crawls through his chest with a burning sensation that bends him in half.

Considering that he has not heard this voice for many years, he finds himself remembering his face quite easily.

His mind, blank, awaits. His hand presses his cell phone even more to his ear.

The voice speaks in a language Namjoon hasn't spoken for a while. He finds himself thinking instantly in Korean, wondering what time is it over there.

“I need your help, Namjoon,” he says. “You remember me, right?”

Namjoon recognizes every inflection in his voice, the color of it, his words in Korean and the echo they leave, revealing a language hidden beneath them.

“Please say you remember me.”

Closing his eyes, Namjoon answers in his mind before answering out loud.

“Of course I do,” he says, slowly, warily. “How can I help you?”

The man's voice stutters before speaking again. Namjoon can imagine him coming and going, moving objects that don't make much noise, just enough for it to be heard through the phone, and wonders what the hell is going on.

“I… It’s complicated.”

Kim Namjoon is not a fan of complicated. This is one of his life rules. Peace is the safest choice to pick. The easiest, safest option that one can take, using it as a compass to navigate through life, not worrying, not messing things up.

He decided to live peacefully as soon as he got a job and a place to spend his days, surrounded by people with routines, just like him. Peaceful people. Peaceful routines. The same ones, every day. He picks the same groceries every weekend, dines at the same spot, rewards himself for a new idea or plot that comes through both epiphanies and dreams with the same brand of apple pie. Peace is a routine. He knows it. He owns it. He needs to stay calm in order to keep things in a state of equilibrium he has learned to love.

This was, of course, the life rule he broke when he intertwined his life— and body, soul and heart— with a guy named Jackson Wang.

Being calm, living smoothly, was a routine. He owned his own peace of mind. It gave him something solid to stand on.

He couldn’t afford to lose his temper, and yet, he did.

A sharp pain rips his mind in two, running from his nape to his forehead, making him curse again about everything that happened last night.

“Can I visit you?” The voice asks. Begs. It's still begging. “Soon?”

Namjoon feels weak. He's about to faint. Maybe it’s the hangover. Maybe he’s just hungry, considering he hasn’t eaten anything but alcohol since last night.

Right now, he can't afford thoughts on physical matters. He's struck with feelings, messing with his thoughts, with his half-awake brain.

His priority is, at this precise moment, trapped inside his chest, fluttering, fighting to get out of his ribcage. Beating and hurting, his heart fills him with a desire to protect that voice that begs for help.

But how?

“Sure, Jin,” he accepts, without even thinking about it. “You are always welcome here.”

 _You may not regret this,_ Irene had said in their last session. _Rebuilding your confidence, your own place, your feelings, you may not regret this, Namjoon._

But how?

_Staying there, trapped in remorse and self-loath, alive but very much dead, you will regret that._

How can he be sure?

_You’ve said it before, Namjoon. I’m only helping you to see your own strength._

He can’t.

He cannot know.

With both of his eyes wide open, without a hint of drowsiness, he decides not to think anymore.

“I’ll be taking the next flight I find to… England, right?”

How far is he willing to go?

“Yes,” Namjoon can’t help but chuckle. He’s lived there all his life. Where else could he live? “England.”

He hears a zipper, some kind of rustling and a sigh.

“Namjoon.”

“Yes, Jin?”

“I’ll see you soon.”

That’s a statement he never thought he’d hear again. It makes him smile widely. He wants to laugh, but he won’t do it. Somehow, a hunch inside his gut tells him this is a serious thing. He can’t be sure.

“I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

The call ends. He gets up as fast as he can, cursing his habit of sleeping bare-chested, running to his closet to get his wool sweater. Once he’s downstairs, he greets Monie and closes the crystal door before looking at the mess Monie made last night. His gaze lingers at the dead rose bush and the cemetery formerly known as his garden, then he turns to Monie and sees his paws, covered with mud and leaves.

His own face startles him, reflected in the glass. The rose bush, in pieces, is transposed with his reflection, placed just above his chest.

_He needs me._

Namjoon goes down the steps of his backyard and hugs himself instinctively when he feels the cold morning breeze. There isn’t much to see since the sun is still not up. Monie follows and sits next to him, looking for attention. Namjoon scolds him under his breath, pointing at the hole he made at night, but he desists. It’s no use: Monie won’t learn anything from the scolding and he’s not in the mood.

_Jin needs me._

Monie brings his nose to Namjoon's face and presses its coldness against his cheek.

_Maybe I need him too?_

He cannot know.

Surrounded by everything he cherishes and never misses to cheer him up, his mouth outlines a shy smile.

Deep down, he has no idea about what is to come. And it scares him to tears, he’s not going to lie.

He just knows one thing.

_I know better now._

He wasn’t sure to accept Wang’s first proposal of hooking up inside a dirty wardrobe room the night they first met. After thinking thoroughly about the future, he took the leap of faith. He took it for some strange man he met at a reading, a man he hadn’t read at all and merely knew.

He wasn’t sure of trusting him and he ended doing it wholeheartedly, just to painfully regret it after he found out about his marriage. He wasn’t sure of taking him back, despite knowing this would do him no good, assuming the position of lover and not the one of his true love, and he took that risk just to find out it wasn't worth it. Namjoon had considered every decision and it took months before he could make up his mind back then.

And in the end, he had risked it all for nothing.

Why wouldn’t he risk everything now? Knowing that deep, deep down, he’s never been capable of forgetting him, not even after all these years? Why wouldn’t Namjoon help Jin, the first love of his life, the man he promised himself to ten years ago, with hopes of meeting again (and never did, because life’s unfair and summer love affairs never go as planned)?

For Kim Seokjin… Namjoon would do anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget: kudos and comments keep authors active~.
> 
> Ramblings between updates @ [TWT](https://twitter.com/shampoofaeries)


	2. Retrouvaille

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hello?”
> 
> “Jin! Hi. I sent you texts, uh…” Seokjin can hear voices around him. “Are you still at the airport? I am outside. I arrived twenty minutes ago…”
> 
> Seokjin puts the call on speaker and looks through his notifications, as quick as he can. He sees many messages but spots three messages from Namjoon and apologizes for not answering. “I got a little busy.”
> 
> “Ah, I see. It’s okay, I’m still waiting outside,” he offers a reassuring tone, which Seokjin thanks in silence. “I can’t wait.”
> 
> Seokjin holds his breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added a major tag, I recommend to read them again. (No, I won't get tired of reminding y'all this is a very hurtful fic, thank you and you're welcome.)

_And well, I think I've gone mad  
Isn't that so sad?_  
**The 1975:** The Ballad Of Me And My Brain.

This is the stupidest thing he’s ever done.

Incheon International Airport’s flight information screens lighten Seokjin’s face, coloring his skin blue. His weary eyes are searching for his flight’s time of departure with no luck. He can’t focus. There are too many flights, flights to cities he didn’t even know existed.

This is the first time he’s flying on his own. His intuition comes in handy, however, he’s not in the best shape and one of his worst fears is missing the plane. Or getting caught.

The gate numbers and the time indicating their departure pile up inside his throat, making him feel short-breathed. His pulse must be over the roof. He’s close to giving all up, dropping his plans and returning to a life he  
_(deserves i deserve this life this life i)_ _  
_ hates.

Seokjin finds his flight: a flashing red block blinks in front of his eyes, letting him know his plane is not even at the gate it’s supposed to be; letting him know, too, that everything can go to hell any time now.

Time is a worry he can’t let go. Seokjin needs to keep an eye on it. He looks at his wristwatch, feeling sick. If he has to spend another hour at this airport, he’ll lose the last nerve he’s managed to hold. He’s not strong enough, he’s  
_(stupid stupid stupid stupid)_  
gonna bail out of this plan.

Walking aimlessly between the row of seats in the waiting room he gets closer to a column, thinking it’s better to sit down if he wants to save energy. Before doing so, he takes a quick look around, scanning the people around him.

This is the only thing he knows for sure: his flight is delayed and there’s nothing he can do about it, but wait. He could be calm, he knows this is a common thing that happens with long flights, but there’s a worry that weighs more than the one that makes him see his wristwatch compulsively: he could be being followed.

A chill runs down his spine as he squats and eases his butt on the cold floor. His grip tightens around the only luggage he carries, an old denim backpack that carries his personal belongings which are his phone, a worn-out wallet, a black baseball cap, and a book.

Seokjin is getting scared; he’s not gonna lie to himself saying he’s having the time of his life. He’s constantly looking around, thinking he’ll meet a pair of eyes he dreads so much.

Frightened is a word that poorly describes the state he’s in.

He checks the time on his wristwatch one more time  
_(only a minute has passed since the last time i checked i know that but i can’t stop)_ _  
_ thinking that maybe, just maybe, there's a slight chance he'll make it. 

All Seokjin sees is numbers. He can’t get the hour straight. He’s getting dizzy, so he closes his eyes.

And all he sees now is just that.

Numbers.

Numbers everywhere, inside his head, painted on the walls, clinging on people’s faces. It doesn’t matter if he’s trying to hide somewhere inside his mind, everything is painted with shapes and lines that embody numbers inside his thoughts. Numbers that come and go as they will through his mind, numbers he feels crawling inside his own skin, making him shudder.

Numbers that opened a door that was long forgotten, locked. Numbers that will lead him through this improvised yet necessary getaway. Numbers that merge with words that hurt, numbers that hang faces inside the walls of his mind, images that will haunt him forever; numbers that could save him or send him straight to his own demise.

Seokjin praises in silence his own decision of wearing dark glasses, even indoors. He can keep scanning the people without feeling that everyone is noticing his obvious paranoid stare, staying alert in case he needs to start running.

Taking his phone from inside his backpack, he plugs in his earphones and sets an alarm half an hour from now. Hugging the backpack tightly after zipping it close with his phone inside, he rests his eyes for a moment and ends up hugging his own body, falling asleep instantly.

The last thing crossing his mind is a loud sigh. It brings no relief, knowing he’ll return to his paranoid state once he wakes up, but his body is thankful.

His mind drifts away until it sinks into a deep slumber, unaware of the noise around him and the people that share his despair and restlessness.

He’s so tired, he doesn’t even notice a little girl running between the rows of seats at his gate, holding a plushie between her arms, singing a kid’s song and staying inside her mother’s line of sight.

Up she goes and down she goes until it happens. Inevitably, she notices him and, curious as she can be, she starts walking in his direction.

Dajeong stares at him, keeping a safe distance between them, and sees his low-hanging head.

She wonders if the man is dead.

She can’t help but stay still. Momma would be cautious around older men and women if she were a 6-years-old girl, just like her. She wishes she had a stick so she could approach him and poke him with it just to make sure he’s alive, but she’ll never find a stick inside this dull airport and Momma would get pissy-pissy if she tried something like that.

Dajeong shrugs and thinks it’s better this way. She has better things to do, anyways.

With that issue soon forgotten, she decides to make another race between the rows her mother allowed her to run (carefully), she holds tight his companion, Kumo, the plushie she’s had since she was a toddler.

The girl turns her back to the man and prepares to start running towards Momma. She’s busy looking at her phone, probably watching another crafty video she loves to watch. If she runs very, very fast, Momma won’t notice she’s about to get caught in a tight, squeezy hug she’ll never get to escape from. She may even add some kisses… a thought crosses her mind and her eyebrows furrow in worry: maybe that’s why Momma seems sad. Maybe she hasn’t been sleeping OK because she’s lacking some kisses and squeezy hugs. That must be it.

Smiling, thinking she can kiss that sadness away, Dajeong starts counting up to three. She’s ready to run and to hug and to kiss, but something stops her: something interrupts her count making her stop, getting instantly annoyed at the man behind her back, the one that appeared to be dead but now is very much alive and… sobbing? Talking?

Dajeong looks at him over her shoulder, getting a bit anxious. Is he… _crying?_

As she runs to Momma she isn’t thinking about the hugs nor the kisses (that she’ll save for later, that’s for sure); instead, she thinks about getting him some help. He, too, probably needs a hug, but there’s no way in the world she’s going to approach him without telling Momma first.

Playing _Kumo Racing_ to kill some time is no longer important.

The phone in his hand slips and hits the hard-wood floor. He sees it there. The cracked screen shows him his face, also broken.

No one answered his calls. Not even the last number he dialed. The one he thought would be _the one._

The steps coming from the stairs freeze him in place. As much as he wants to scream, he’s paralyzed. The door is open and his backpack is on the bed, full of clothes he wanted to take with him. His closet doors are opened widely and he knows this scene is pretty obvious.

He’s gonna see it.

He’s gonna see that Seokjin was planning to escape, and he won’t be happy.

This time his body won’t endure it. If he collapses against a wall or a door, it’ll be game over. His skin will rip in two like ripe fruit; the juice, his blood, will paint his silhouette wherever his body lands. His bones will probably break, once and for all, and they’ll perforate his lungs, his stomach, his muscles.

And he’ll be grateful, for it will be the last time this happens.

He’s tired. Through all the pain he’s to meet, he’ll do nothing. He never does a thing.

It’s worse when he does, so he’s learned not to fight back anymore.

Seokjin is sure he’s going to die.

The only thing he manages to do is to sit on the floor, still looking at his phone. Heartbroken.

The steps have finally reached the top of the staircase and it’s a matter of time for them to arrive at the room he’s in.

The room he’s about to die in.

Seokjin closes his eyes.

He doesn’t notice his tears anymore. He’s used to them. They flow like endless rivers, suffocating him.

_Maybe this time will be the last?_

He almost always asks this question and is too tired to think of an answer.

He’s afraid. Paralyzed. Frightened.

But most of all, he’s heartbroken.

_Why didn’t you answer?_

Seokjin cries harder when he hears the door creak.

A whimper leaves his plush lips as he feels a pair of hands on his right shoulder.

It’s over. It’s going to be over soon. He’s going to die.

Finally.

_I wish I could’ve said goodbye to you differently._

A hand rests on his shoulder, shaking him.

Seokjin doesn’t open his eyes. He knows he was dreaming, but even so, he knows reality is worse. These nightmares are nothing. Waking up from them means he’s back to a place he finds worse than the hell he dreams of every single night.

The first thought crossing his mind is one that puts his paranoia at ease. It spikes up his panic, though.

He’s found him.

_It’s over._

Maybe it was too much to think he would make it. Leaving home was perhaps one of the worst ideas he’s ever had and  
_(and the last oh my god the last and)_ _  
_ maybe it's true what he's been told lately: maybe he’s not worthy of another kind of living. Maybe he deserves this. What was he thinking?

“Excuse me? Sir?”

Seokjin takes his sunglasses off, trying to stand up, but the pair of hands try to keep him in place.

A middle-aged woman with a girl hiding behind her legs is talking to him. 

“I’m sorry,” she begins, bowing in front of him. “My daughter… she wants to know if you’re okay?”

Thrown away by the whole situation, Seokjin manages to put his sunglasses inside his backpack, along with his earphones. He cleans his eyes and face with a quick gesture with his right hand and tries to smile.

“Don’t worry,” he addresses the girl, hiding even more. “I must’ve had a bad dream.”

Seokjin looks at the lady, who’s looking at him with a worried look.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asks again and hurries to introduce her daughter, trying to explain her persistence. “See, she’s Dajeong. She thought you would want this.”

Before he can even think, the girl is handling him an orange juice box and cookies bought from a vending machine.

His stomach growls too low, only for him to listen. The girl speaks right after Seokjin accepts the snacks she’s offering. 

“Travelling is hard,” she starts, still shy. “Momma always buys me these if I get nervous. Are you nervous?”

Seokjin sighs and lets out a dry laugh, getting on his two feet to crouch in front of her. When he meets Daejong’s eyes, the lady smiles a little bit.

“I am nervous, yes,” he nods, wiping away some tears, threatening to fall. “Thank you, Dajeong.”

The girl hugs her plushie a bit tighter and hides her smile behind it. “Do you want a hug? Kumo gives the best hugs.”

“Oh is that true?” Seokjin turns his face to the lady’s and she lifts her eyebrows, shrugging. “I guess he’ll have to prove it.”

Dajeong lends Seokjin her plushie and he hugs it tight, feeling a painful heartthrob that shakes his soul. It’s bittersweet, how his mind fills with good and bad memories collectively, making him feel  
_(you’re so childish)_ _  
_ conflicted.

After a few seconds, he gives it back. “You were right. He’s the best hugger.”

“I hope he maked you feel better.”

“Made, Dajeong.”

“Made,” she corrects herself, shaking her head. “Are you going far, mister?”

“Dajeong!” her mom cuts her off, placing both of her hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, it’s nothing.”

“He must be tired, Dajeong. let’s leave the man alone.”

“But I wanted to know—”

“Let’s go, sweetie,” the lady bows again and starts walking. Seokjin stands up completely but stays there, looking at them with a smile that starts to vanish as soon as they turn their backs.

“Ah, Ahjumma-ssi,” Seokjin calls out, making both of them turn. “Would you mind if I… sit with you? The flight is delayed. The floor is not comfortable at all…”

“Sure!” she agrees, waiting for him. “There are some free seats near ours.”

Seokjin doesn’t see it, because she’s not facing him, but Dajeong smiles widely and whispers something to Kumo’s ear. Something about a new friend, or perhaps about cookies. Either way, Seokjin isn’t aware.

Now being accompanied by two people, he feels calmer. Paranoia bites one or two of his nerves, but he thinks he’s going to be fine. He just has to stick around until his plane arrives.

If he’s made it through all this burden, the least he can do is gather strength enough to escape. It’s the least he can do for himself.

Once they’ve reached their seats, Dajeong approaches the man carefully, knowing she’s on her mother’s sight. She notices he has no luggage with him, which is strange, but forgets about it as soon as he sees the man opening the cookie box she just gave him.

“Are you going to eat them all?” she asks innocently, starting to feel hungry. She gets confused and kinda annoyed when both of the adults now at her sides burst out laughing.

She won’t ask him about sharing the orange juice, she knows they’d probably laugh even harder.

With a smile, she accepts two cookies and gives one to Momma. As she bites it and finishes it, she remains quiet. Dajeong learns that the man’s name is Kim Seokjin and that he’s flying to London to see an old friend. She’s not sure, but a hunch in her belly tells her he’s traveling because of his crying problem. Maybe someone put a spell on him. Maybe the old friend he’s visiting is a man or a woman that cures bad dreams.

Discreetly, Dajeong stares at Seokjin as if wanting to sort him out, in vain. His secret must be held under a big box inside his chest, locked with a thousand keys, for she sees nothing but a smile on his face.

Somehow she’s relieved. She did what she had to do, which was helping the man. Now it’s going to be their friend’s responsibility.

As she bites two more cookies while the man and Momma talk about something she doesn’t quite understand, she tells herself a story to keep her mind busy while the adults speak _Adultese,_ a language she’s not to learn until she’s 20: her story starts with a man flying all across the world (that’s where London must be, since she doesn’t know where London is) just to meet an old friend, finding out he or she’s a wizard that in the end cures his bad dream curse, and then they live happily ever after.

But by the time she reaches her own story’s ending she’s dozing off, leaning against Momma’s chest, who is holding her inside a warm hug, letting Dajeong smell her scent.

The last thing she sees before closing his eyes is the man’s face, smiling tenderly at her, wishing her good dreams.

Dajeong wishes something back to him before shipping herself off to dreamland. She hopes Seokjin gets the happily ever after he deserves.

Little by little, a dreamy haze engulfs her consciousness and leads the way to a realm she always dreams of, where wizards and witches laugh and dine, and dragons and magic are the only language people speak.

There’s not a single bad dream on sight.

Dajeong’s not cursed, after all.

That man, on the other hand…

Seokjin's airways narrow when he hears his flight is on its way to the gateway. The airline expresses an apology he pays no mind to as he gathers the few belongings he’s traveling with. While heading towards the line as the plane is going to do in a few minutes, he looks to the lady and her daughter and waves goodbye.

Dajeong doesn’t get to say goodbye— she’s fast asleep.

Seokjin’s heart feels heavy. He hopes with all his heart that the girl doesn’t lose her doll on her way to Hong Kong, where he’ll lose them since it’s his connecting flight.

When boarding, his mind goes blank. He doesn't look back. Bad thoughts abandon him and soon enough he’s showing his credentials to the flight attendant. They don’t bother to look at his backpack, already small enough not to cause a fuss about space inside the plane.

The peace that fills his body when he’s welcome aboard is unreal.

Even when this is the most expensive flight he thought he’d ever fly on, one he’s too busy to think he doesn’t deserve, a flight he bought with lies and secrets, he has hope.

This flight may or may not  
_(it must it must it must)_  
change his life.

Good or bad, but a change, after all.

Georgina holds the handheld vacuum with one hand and turns it off with the other. She leans to pick up a lump of cloth inside the guests’ closet and dusts it off. She picks it up, walking slowly to the salon, where Raphaella is pretending to read a boring book she’s been criticizing since she bought it.

Georgina knows her wife is asleep by the mere sight of her back.

This is a perk of being married: you are aware of every single body function your special one lives by.

She wonders if she should wake her up. Dinner’s gonna be ready soon and the way she’s sitting must be hurting her back and neck, inclined to a side, chin resting on the palm of her hand.

“Ellie, honey?”

There’s no possible way of waking her up that won’t startle her. Georgina has tried and tried to find one over the years, with no use.

“I’m awake I’m awake,” she slurs, turning around to see Georgina. They look at each other in silence and then they giggle, almost soundless, sharing a private moment they repeat often and have learned to love so tenderly. “You’ll gloat about this forever, Gina.”

“About what?” asks Georgina, walking to her.

“You were right.”

 _Ah, a sweet victory._ Another perk of being married to a stubborn writer.

“I always am,” Georgina smiles, closing her eyes. Raphaella grabs her and pulls her to her lap. Still holding to what she found in the closet, she thinks this is not comfortable at all but finds it endearing. “What are you talking about?”

“This is the most useless book I’ve ever bought,” she complains. “Please, please, oh please _do take_ my credit card away from my hand every time I buy a book you know I’ll hate.”

“It can’t be that bad, Ella.”

Georgina takes the book from the table Raphaella’s been sitting on and she takes a look at it.

“Ah. You’d think they’d learn by now,” she summarizes, recognizing the logo of the publisher. Two golden letters, H. W., make her put it away almost instantly. “I don’t need to open it. I knew I was right.”

“Alright alright _alright.”_ Raphaella urges her to stand up and starts piling up books in her arms. “No need to gloat that much about it, Love. You were right, I was wrong, whatever.”

Georgina looks away, still smiling. She notices she’s still carrying the lump of cloth in her arms.

“Do you happen to know who’s the owner of this?” as she asks the question, she unfolds what looks like a coat. Some dust falls from it, which lets them know they must clean the guests’ closet as soon as possible, and Raphaella stands in front of it, her head tilted.

“No idea. What size is it?”

“Looks like a 42,” Georgina reads the tag inside the collar. “The person wearing this must be a giant.”

Raphaella, leaving the room already, stands on the bottom of the stairs and looks at her, brow furrowed. Georgina thinks she must be kind of pissed by her waking her up, and a worrying feeling creeps up her belly. She can’t get pissy when she’s groggy.

“I think I know who’s the owner,” she sighs. “Leave it on the sofa. I’ll take it to the dry cleaners and I’ll keep it.”

Opening her eyes _wide_ wide, Georgina opens her mouth. “It’s not yours! Whose is it?”

“It’s mine now,” she sentences, climbing up the stairs. “God bless he forgot it. He’s going to have to come back for it and I don’t think he will.”

Not understanding a thing, Georgina waits. “Are you going to tell me who’s the owner?”

Her wife shrugs. “I bet this coat is expensive. It’ll go great with the silk dress I plan to wear on our Christmas _Eve_ nt.”

Losing her voice up the staircase, Georgina takes another look to the tag and lets out a whistle when she sees the brand’s signature. Raphaella is right. Not only is this coat designer’s; she recognizes the owner as soon as she reads the initials behind the tag.

“Who puts initials on their stuff at this point?” she huffs to herself. Laughing, she acknowledges the answer. And she wonders if he’ll show up to claim it, ruining Raphaella’s plan of wearing it on the gala and dinner event they do every year.

She doubts it. After everything that happened last weekend, she doubts he’s going to make an appearance to their events on the time being.

Hell, if she were him, she’d probably change her name, she’d move to another city or the countryside, and she’d rather start her life from scratch than coming back here, knowing everyone’s still looking.

“Embarrassing,” Georgina mumbles, shaking her head and climbing up her stairs. “Too embarrassing.”

Namjoon reads the first sentence of a paragraph and starts over again. His leg, going up and down in a nervous tic, is making him feel uneasy. But he can’t stop this feeling. He’s had it since that phone call and he’s sure it won’t go away until… 

Well, it’s not going anywhere until further notice. Period.

He looks at the clock on top of his fridge and sighs. He has to pick up Jin at the airport around midnight, and time can’t be more of a burden.

It’s three in the afternoon. He gets up and brews some coffee while he thinks of freezing it once it brews and taking a nap instead.

Monie, on his bed, snores.

With a mug firmly gripped by the insides of his hands, he walks outside of his home and into his backyard. He looks over his recently planted friends and smiles. He reminds himself to keep an eye on Monie’s shenanigans or he’ll find himself in need of teaching him a lesson.

Sipping his coffee and burning his tongue due to his eagerness, he scans the sky.

He can’t wait. Too bad this is the only thing he can do. Waiting.

“Reality is a bitch,” he groans, sipping more coffee.

And it sure is. He just doesn’t know how big of a bitch it is.

Yet.

Almost at the same time Namjoon looks up at the sky, Seokjin wakes up from another nightmare. He rushes to the bathroom and thanks every god there is that he didn’t pee himself in the middle of his long flight.

It’s not the people he worries about. He’ll never see them again. The thing that worries him is that he doesn’t have more clothes and he already thinks his body reeks. He hasn’t showered; he doubts he will be able to do so until he arrives at Namjoon’s place.

Seokjin thinks he’ll probably need to explain a couple of things to Namjoon when he lands. Starting with his smell.

The thought of this makes him want to cry.

He’s not ready.

As he dries his hands on the plane’s bathroom, he looks at his reflection for a second, regretting it instantly and turning away not to see himself anymore.

Seokjin doesn’t remember his nightmares vividly, but he knows every damn sign so well so much he’s often waking himself up before it’s too late. This makes him rest intermittently, staying in a state of haze and confusion most of the time.

Once his bladder is empty, he returns to his seat just to be scolded by a stewardess.

He hadn’t even noticed the plane was going through a thunderstorm.

His body, still frightened from the nightmare, had turbulence of its own. He’s struck with shame when he clicks his seatbelt and secures it tightly, so he pretends to read his book knowing he’s being looked at by more than one person in the same row he is.

Seokjin thinks he’ll wait until the embarrassment wears off, thinking he’ll start to worry about the thunderstorm any time now, but he can’t be more wrong.

His body demands rest, and shutting down is what it does when it’s needed.

The grip of his hands let loose and his book falls as he passes out on his seat, exhausted.

She left Dajeong at home. Well, not at home. She left her daughter with her sister in a hotel room watching cartoons, eating whatever she pleases, just to be here on time.

Mrs. Shin is nervous. It’s the first time she visits a place like this and she feels out of place. The colors, the smell of the reception, the hard-wood floor. She looks at her skirt and stops tugging it, noticing the wrinkles she’s left in it for the past hour. The receptionist that pointed her at the sofa she’s sitting now looks so elegant compared to her: even her outfit matches the burgundy wallpaper that makes the room feel a little bit hotter, crowded, despite the fact that they’re the only souls here; the makeup she’s wearing makes her look like an ancient princess or a femme fatale, and she thinks on how successful she must be. Receptionist or not, she must be living the time of her life. Mrs. Shin tries to guess her age and she’s pretty close when she guesses it’s twenty-five.

Afraid she’s going to be caught staring, Mrs. Shin looks away. The clock on the wall tells her it’s past 4 o’clock. The phone rings and the receptionist picks up at the second ring. After a while, she hangs up and leans over her desk to catch Mrs. Shin’s attention.

“Mr. Kim is stuck in this afternoon’s traffic, ma’am,” she informs her, with a voice so delicate Mrs. Shin feels a pang of jealousy. _She’s so young._ “Would you mind waiting for him a few more minutes?”

Mrs. Shin says there’s no problem and asks the lady if there’s a place she can freshen up. The woman leads her through a door that she didn’t see (it was painted in burgundy too), and when she’s alone, she calls home.

_Home._

Dajeong answers at the first ring.

“Momma!”

“Darling,” Mrs. Shin greets her daughter with a tender tone, trying to forget her own stiffness and discomfort. “I’ll be coming home a bit late.”

“But you said— ”

“Yes, Dajeong, I know what I said,” Dajeong’s mother cuts her off, but this doesn’t stop her kid from whining. She talks over her daughter, knowing she’ll listen to her despite her loud whine noises and complaints. “I’ll take you to lunch tomorrow, okay? Wherever you like. Today you’re having dinner with your aunt.”

“But she’s _boooooooooooring!”_

Mrs. Shin takes a moment and turns away the phone, away from her laugh. Yes, her sister is pretty boring; she, of all people, knows this. Still, Dajeong needs to learn how to be respectful and obedient.

“No buts,” Mr. Shin sentences. She hears a muffled sound outside the bathroom she’s in and thinks it must be Mr. Kim. “I’ll talk to you later, darling.”

“…alright, Momma.”

“Will you behave? Will you apologize to my sister about what you just said?”

“I guess so,” Dajeong answers in a very low voice. Mrs. Shin gives her a moment to think and then she speaks up again. “…yes.”

“I love you, darling,” Mrs. Shin says and smiles. She does. She loves her with her life. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“See you soon Momma.”

She finishes the call and goes out, finding a man standing in front of the receptionist’s desk, smiling at her. They stop talking as soon as she enters the room.

“Ah, you must be Mrs. Shin,” he greets her, bowing. “I'm sorry. This city gets crazier by the minute. I should’ve known better about traffic. There were many accidents on the road.”

Mrs. Shin bows back and says it's no problem. “I know how it is. I used to live here.”

The man steps aside and points at a door, which Mrs. Shin assumes it’s his office. They step inside, first her, then him.

The room is also burgundy. This is the first thing she notices. Burgundy with golden details here and there, with a big mahogany desk right in the middle and a rug that makes her trip, much to her own embarrassment. She’s led to sit in a chair in front of his desk. There are papers on it, but she can’t read them; she thinks they must be private. He has a picture facing him, on which two figures appear to be hugging. She looks away only to find Mr. Kim smiling, showing a perfect row of white teeth.

“How can I help you, Mrs. Shin?”

She doesn’t know why, but seeing him smiling is unsettling at first. Almost as if it was a fake smile he was throwing at her like some kind of bait. Mrs. Shin scolds herself mentally and forces her mind to abandon this train of thought under the logic that this is his job. He’s not required to be friendly, he’s working. Besides, her sister told her he was the best. The pictures and the diplomas and certificates hanging from the walls tell her so, too.

“Ah, Mr. Kim. Thank you for seeing me today. I know your schedule is usually busy.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Shin,” he says, waving a hand. “This is what I do for a living. I was summoned on a trial today and managed to sneak out before they noticed I was missing.”

It’s an obvious lie. Mrs. Shin is not sure if she likes a lawyer that tells funny jokes about obvious lies. But she has no other option. She manages a dry laugh and he smiles a bit wider.

“Now tell me, what was your case about…?”

“I’m sure your receptionist gave you a heads up on it, but I brought this just in case,” she starts saying, taking a folder out of her messenger bag. She hands it to him and he takes it and starts looking at its content. “It’s— ”

“Custody.”

The room remains silent. Mrs. Shin feels a shiver trying to crawl up her spine but she holds the inner strength she’s been piling up all these months and fights it back. The golden ornaments in Mr. Kim’s office stare sharply at her, at her clothes, her worried eyes. They probably know about the little pools of sweat behind her knees. They probably can guess the number of tears she’s holding back.

“You’re being sued by Mr. Shin,” he reads out loud, following his gaze with his index finger. He caresses the paper in a very soft way, almost like he doesn’t want to touch it. “He wants the custody of your child.”

“Shin Dajeong,” Mrs. Shin nods, keeping her head down. “I traveled here with her. I came here just to see you.”

“You did, hm?”

Mrs. Shin wants to tell him she can afford just this trip, this chance; she wants to tell him she’ll be back in Seoul the day after tomorrow and she _needs_ him to go back with her, she _needs_ his help, or else she’s gonna lose her. She wants to beg. She wants to assure him she’ll do anything to stop his husband from taking her daughter away from her.

“Mr. Kim, you have to help me,” she begins. “I have the money. Well, my sister has it. She’s with me and she’s supporting us while I get a job. But this money, Mr. Kim, this money is yours if you accept to work for me. I know your price range and I think we can afford it.”

She stops to gulp loudly and tries to calm down, breathing loudly. Her heart races wildly inside her chest.

“The first trial is this week and I know how difficult it is that this whole thing is in Seoul, but… Mr. Kim, you need to come back with me. I’ll do anything. I’ll pay for our flight… well, my sister will… it’s not going to be first-class and I’m sorry, a lawyer like you should travel with all the commodities you work hard for—”

He calls her in the middle of her venting but she doesn’t seem to hear him.

“My sister told me you were the best, and here I am asking for some impossible thing, Mr. Kim, but if you only knew— ”

“Mrs. Shin.” The lawyer’s eyes soften. He sighs and closes the folder, taking off his glasses. Mrs. Shin didn’t even notice when did he put them on. “I just need to know one thing.”

She’s afraid to make a move, then again, she’ll do anything. “Yes?”

“If it’s not too much to ask… here it says you left your home last June. Is that correct?”

She nods.

“May I know the reason?” Mrs. Shin can’t help the flush on her cheeks and the tears in her eyes. Her voice cracks when she begins telling him the reason she left Mr. Shin, but at the same moment, Mr. Kim stands up and turns his back on her, opening another door she didn’t see. He takes a bottle of water from the minibar and hands it to her, sitting on the chair at her side. “This will help.”

“Thank you.”

He smiles. She finds relief in this one; she trusts him. “Tell me, Mrs. Shin. What happened?”

She sighs and thinks she’s been living in denial all these months just to stay afloat. She needs to accept the things that have been happening since June. Denying the fact that she did wrong walking away from him the way she did is of no use. Denying the fact that she’s been living on temporary homes with her daughter on a side, making her go through experiences a child shouldn’t live, is also of no use.

“I’m a good mother, Mr. Kim,” she says. The cracks in her voice cue him to reach the tissue box he has on his desk. Also burgundy. “I want what’s best for my daughter.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“I… I couldn’t live there anymore,” it’s been years and she’s finally saying it, she’s opening a faucet she didn’t know she was closing with inhuman strength. “Dajeong was next. I saw it in his eyes. Me, Mr. Kim, I don’t care about me, you know? I can go through many things, I can stand everything he puts on me, on my shoulders. But her… I couldn’t picture a world where Dajeong was to suffer the same things I suffered.”

He’s silently watching her, prompting her to let go of every thought in her mind. And so she does.

“I wanted to kill him.”

None of them speak for the next minutes. They stare at each other until Mrs. Shin breaks eye contact and keeps her mouth curved downwards, with shame.

“I was going to do it,” Mrs. Shin manages to spit against her will. “I was on my toes, you know. I was ready in case he came at her with a violent remark, a punch, or worse: I was ready to slice his hands off if he even thought about doing to her what he did to me all those years.”

Mr. Kim remains silent. He’s seen this in court. He knows things heat up rapidly in these cases. He’s experienced in defending people that kill, steal or cause disgrace on the spur of the moment. He understands passion is a heavy thing. When placed in the right actions and thoughts, it does wonders. When misplaced, it’s dangerous. A ticking bomb.

He thinks he knows what’s next.

“I didn’t do it, Mr. Kim,” she confesses, looking at him. She’s shaking, and he's noticeably surprised at how the story didn't turn the way the thought it would. Her eyes, out of orbit, beg for an ounce of belief, an ounce of compassion. “The thought of being this violent took me by surprise. I’m not like this, Mr. Kim. I’m a good woman. I’m a good mother.”

He reaches her hand with his.

“I know you are,” he nods and gets a little bit closer just to take her tiny hands inside of his. “I believe you.”

“You do?”

“I do,” he hands her another tissue and urges her to drink some water before starting to talk business. “I’ll help you, Mrs. Shin.”

“You will?!” she screams, then shuts her mouth with her hand. She’s blushing again. “I’m sorry. You’ll help me, Mr. Kim?”

He stands up and offers her a hand. “I’ll be glad to defend your case.”

They shake hands as she starts crying. “Thank you thank you _thank you,_ Mr. Kim, I’ll tell my sister about this. She’s the one that’ll be flying us back to Seoul.”

Mr. Kim takes her phone from her hands, already dialing her sister’s number, and turns the screen off.

“Don’t worry about it, Mrs. Shin,” he smiles. “This is my main office and I work here most of my cases, but I actually live in South Korea too. I’m just here on a short business trip.”

Relieved, Mrs. Shin smiles back. She finds his smile more appealing and wonders if he’s this charming to every client that comes through his door begging for help just like she just did.

“I’ll give you a card and once we're back we can start planning, alright?” he leans on his desk and reaches for a box with many cards. He scribbles some things and then hands it to her. “Here’s my personal phone number and the address of my office back in Seoul. Wendy will give you the information you need in order to cover up my services’ fee.”

She reads the card, already thinking of another way of thanking him beside the salary her sister’s about to pay him.

“Thank you, Mr. Kim.”

“Call me Kai,” Mr. Kim says, looking at her and offering a hand. “I’m your lawyer now, after all.”

On her way home, Mrs. Shin finds herself thinking about a homemade yakgwa recipe Dajeong likes a lot. She also wonders if Mr. Kim— _Kai,_ likes sweet things.

She particularly doesn’t, but she’d bake him a thousand cookies if that’s what it takes to show him a bit of gratitude she’s suddenly full of.

Shedding tears on her way to her hotel, Mrs. Shin reminds herself of the very first thing she’s doing this for. With an aching heart, mumbling the words she told Mr.— _Kai,_ _  
_ _(i’m a good mother)_ _  
_ she tries to comfort herself, trying to pull herself together  
_(i’m a good woman)_ _  
_ before she arrives and lets her daughter see how sad and worried she is.

She shouldn’t live like this. She mustn’t know any of this. She’s too young… 

Namjoon is stuck in the night traffic on his way to the airport. He accidentally took a nap and woke up too late. He’s afraid he won’t make it on time, leaving Seokjin waiting, alone and probably tired.

Or worse, he could think he’s been stood up.

Namjoon opens his window and sighs loudly. There’s nothing he can do. The line in front of him is not moving.

He wishes he could teleport himself to the airport. He’s 15 minutes away but he’s sure this bump in the road will make him spend more than half an hour sitting on his butt, doing nothing but stressing.

“I should’ve brought a book.”

His phone buzzes inside his hoodie. He takes it out, not before checking around for any kind of traffic regulator that could write him a ticket, and unlocks it.

_Hey. I’m here. Where can I meet you?_

_\- Kim Seok Jin_

Namjoon punches his truck’s claxon instinctively and curses.

_i’m on my way. traffic is heavy!!_ _  
_ _i’m sorry_ _  
_ 😔

The line starts to move again just enough for him to startle himself with an unexpected halt. Namjoon is about to curse again when he receives another message.

_Don’t be! I arrived too soon._ _  
_ _I’ll freshen up while you arrive._ _  
_ _Tell me when you’re here._

_\- Kim Seok Jin_

Namjoon looks at the car in front of him and sighs. He’s a bit endeared by the man’s signature. It’s not needed and yet he seems to add it every single time on every text he writes.

“Cute,” he mumbles, locking his phone.

The cold wind of the night ruffles his blond hair and caresses his cheeks, and he forces himself to think of haikus while the cars move and stop, again and again. He’s trying hard to set himself under the idea that this is a ride just like any other. He’s keeping everything together by being distracted with his five-seven-five verses, all the flower knowledge he holds inside his brain and the imagery he’s found for the past seven years inside the haikus of Matsuo Basho, his favorite poet.

He remembers two poems from him. The first one being:

_“None is traveling_ _  
_ _Here along this way but I,_ _  
_ _This autumn evening.”_

Namjoon feels comforted by this one until another one sweeps it away, punching him straight to the gut:

_“Now in sad autumn_ _  
_ _as I take my darkening path…_ _  
_ _A solitary bird.”_

He stops thinking. His grip tightens around the steering wheel and he drives, slowly, through this darkening path Basho spoke about, years and decades before he was even planned to exist. The solitary bird inside his chest wakes up and starts beating rapidly, making him aware of his nervousness.

He damns poetry, always getting the best of him.

(And he praises it too, in silence, for without it he’d be doomed.)

Seokjin makes sure he can lock the door of the entire bathroom before he starts taking his clothes off. He tries to open the door from the inside and sighs once he’s sure it won’t open. He doesn’t need just a stall, he needs the whole damn bathroom, for he is about to take an impromptu shower until he smells decent, using soap from the soap dispensers and water from rusty faucets he doesn’t trust.

Avoiding at all cost the desperate look his reflection casts at him, he leans over a sink that’ll provide him enough water to shower, he begins.

In the middle of scrubbing his skin with his own fingers, misery hanging around his neck making it feel ten times heavier, he realizes he never thought his first time traveling by himself would be like this.

Namjoon finds a bench in front of a pair of crystal doors. As soon as he sees it, he knows this is the best spot to wait for him.

With a sad smile, he sees his hands. They’re a bit burnt by holding the coffee cups without cup sleeves, but deep down he knows Jin likes his coffee scalding hot, with a pinch of cinnamon.

He hopes he likes it. If he doesn’t want coffee (maybe he wants to sleep and he’ll want to avoid caffeine), he also bought hot chocolate.

Namjoon won’t mind if Jin chooses one or the other. He’ll gladly take the one he doesn’t want.

He sits down with both of the coffee cups on his side and waits.

 _I should’ve brought a book,_ he thinks again.

But in the end, that’s okay. It’s not like he can focus on something right now that isn’t the idea of meeting Jin again after all these years.

Too distracted to care, he ignores the happiness and eagerness filling his heart. He isn’t aware, but he hasn’t felt like this for months.

Unconsciously, he takes a cup and sips from it, feeling the hot liquid going down his throat. A bitter aftertaste meets his tongue and he smiles.

_I hope he still likes chocolate with a passion._

He remembers how crazy Seokjin used to get when he ate his whole weight on chocolate. He remembers the stars in his eyes every time Namjoon surprised him with one. He remembers the bittersweet aftertaste his kisses left on his mouth when he’d eaten some before their dates.

_I hope he still likes me._

Blushing, Namjoon coughs loudly when he chokes on his coffee and straightens himself up on the bench, feeling the hot liquid running down his chest.

Looking around, embarrassed, he tries to dry his hoodie with his hands.

He damns his memory.

(And praises it too. No need to explain why.)

Seokjin finishes dressing as soon as he feels clean enough and unlocks the room’s door, staying inside. He browses inside his backpack for his toothbrush and a cry leaves his mouth when he realizes he doesn’t have it with him.

In the middle of what looks like a breakdown, his phone starts ringing. His eyes rush to see the caller ID. It’s Namjoon. Seokjin breathes in and out before answering. Once he’s calm, he answers.

“Hello?”

“Jin! Hi. I sent you texts, uh…” Seokjin can hear voices around him. “Are you still at the airport? I am outside. I arrived twenty minutes ago…”

Seokjin puts the call on speaker and looks through his notifications, as quick as he can. He sees many messages but spots three messages from Namjoon and apologizes for not answering. “I got a little busy.”

“Ah, I see. It’s okay, I’m still waiting outside,” he offers a reassuring tone, which Seokjin thanks in silence. “I can’t wait.”

Seokjin holds his breath.

This is awkward. He wishes he could wait for this reencounter a little more; he wishes he had more time to make something good out of him right now, but the only thing he can offer to Namjoon is this part of himself he’d gladly name ‘the worst’. He smells bad, his breath is probably something to die for (and not in a good way) and he knows he’s _this_ close to break down and cry until there’s no tomorrow.

Seokjin needs Namjoon to know what’s going on before he meets him. It’s what he deserves. It’s the best thing to do. His heart hurts inside his chest and it beats pitifully, like a wounded bird. He wishes he had more time. He wishes he was stronger, so he could explain this in person, but he guesses this will have to do. “Namjoon-ah…”

Before he can explain, Namjoon is cutting the call, saying he’ll wait for him outside of the airport, mumbling words Seokjin doesn’t understand, talking about something hot hurting both of his hands.

Confused and conflicted, Seokjin looks at his phone with his mouth open. He wants to call him again but as soon as he picks up the phone with both of his hands, it starts ringing again.

The name on the screen freezes him, making him throw his phone inside the sink he used a few moments ago. Without thinking it twice, Seokjin opens the faucet and lets the water run through the bowl, ruining his phone and making it shut down completely.

His reflection looks back at him with teary eyes. Again, the signs of the unavoidable breakdown he’s been holding back show up inside his mind.

He knows what’s next.

He won’t like it,  
_(please no god oh no PLEASE NO)_ _  
_ but he’ll do it.

Namjoon’s heart, beating at an amazingly high speed, threatens him with death.

He thinks of Jin and nothing more.

He wonders if he’s thinking of him too.

Seokjin will scream. He’ll scream and he’ll cry after having rushed to lock the door again because he’ll need to be on the floor,  
_(where you belong)_ _  
_ crying, and he’ll wish awful things to himself  
_(why why why why why_ **_why why why_ ** _)_ _  
_ before he can  
_(i deserve this i deserve this i **desE**_ ** _ **RVE** THIS I DESERVE THIS_ ** _)_ _  
_ pull himself together.

He’ll allow himself this breakdown  
_(stupid stupid stupid stupid_ _  
_ **_WHAT WERE YOU THINKING_ ** _  
_ _stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid)_ _  
_ and he’ll apologize to Namjoon  
_(i’m fucked up i’m fucked up i’m fucked up_ **_i’m so sorry I’M SO SORRY_ ** _)_  
saying he got into trouble with some white lies he’ll explain later.)

Seokjin was right about two things.

One, this is the stupidest thing he’s ever done.

Two, he’s being followed.

By him.

Laying on the floor, curled up in a ball of pain and despair, he cries. The white light above him follows every movement he makes. Seokjin aims his fists at spots in his torso,  
_(you’re worthless)_ _  
_ his legs and his arms  
_(you’re nothing)_ _  
_ where he’s hit him in the past.

Injured as he is, his skin breaks and he whimpers at the air he’s bleeding out of his lungs.

The only relief he has is that this will be over soon. He has no control over this. As he did with him, he’ll do nothing. He’ll wait. It always stops at some point.

_(Does it, though?)_

Jin’s beverage has run cold. Namjoon’s starting to get worried.

When he calls him, the line gets instantly disconnected.

Namjoon forgets about the past and focuses on this moment.

Debating himself between going in and calling out his name or staying here, he chooses to stay.

Maybe he’s scared of him. Maybe he’s not ready to come out. Maybe his luggage got stuck somewhere or maybe he’s taking his time inside the stores.

Whatever it is, Namjoon won’t move. He’ll do what he does best.

Which is waiting, of course.

When it’s over, Seokjin hugs himself tightly in an embrace that makes him stop breathing for a while. His head  
_(this is the only way bad thoughts go away)_  
will be empty.

Little by little, after shedding some tears inside the ball he’s curled up in, he loosens the embrace and he starts caressing his skin on the spots he knows he needs to heal.

The white light above him watches everything, bathing him with numbness and silence.

Namjoon is pacing in front of a bench, playing carelessly with his phone. He’s anxious. It’s been more than an hour since he texted Jin and his phone line is still unresponsive. Maybe he emptied his battery by accident. He promised himself fifteen minutes ago that he’d check inside again if he didn’t get any text from him, but now he’s called him ten more times and he gets the out-of-service message every time.

“Why did you say you couldn’t wait,” he scolds himself under his breath, looking through the crystal doors of the entrance to the airport. “Stupid.”

Maybe Seokjin is waiting for the awkwardness to wear off before coming out. Maybe he’s regretting coming all the way here just to find an eager friend that knows no boundaries, apparently.

Namjoon’s face feels so hot he can’t handle it. He’s going to lose it if he follows this train of thought.

On top of it, his eyes betray him and make him notice the unnecessary gesture he did before making the first call.

Two cups of coffee (one cold, the other, empty) look back at him as he sighs, embarrassed. He sits again and takes his glasses off, running a hand through his face. As short-sighted as he is, he handles his glasses carefully. He’s known for being too rough with stuff, and the last thing he needs right now is getting his glasses broken, not being able to drive back to his home.

 _(It’d be the second time this week, Namjoon. Why don’t you want to go back home?,_ Irene would point at this with a smile.)

Distracted by his clumsy self and remembering Monie while he’s at it, he pays no mind to the person standing a few steps away, with his mouth open and a longing look in his eyes, locked on him behind a pair of black sunglasses.

Seokjin is struck with melancholy the first second he spots him. Sitting on a bench, twirling his glasses inside his hands, is Namjoon. He has a big stain of coffee on his hoodie, reminding Seokjin how clumsy he can be sometimes. This makes him laugh a little.

He looks calm, almost bored, and Seokjin feels guilty. This feeling goes unnoticed, though, being trapped in a battle against the earthquake inside his belly. His stomach drops and his soul is nowhere to be found.

_He’s taller. I bet he’s taller._

He hopes he’s still him, the Namjoon he met years ago, the Namjoon he fell in and out of love with during his visit, the one that was always so serene, and the one that always knew what to do.

He hopes he’s still willing to be his friend.

(He hopes many things. It’s his favorite activity these days, apparently.)

Walking in his direction with a heavy heart, Seokjin hopes he doesn’t startle him. He also hopes he doesn’t stink. At least not _that_ much.

When he’s at a proper distance, he gulps before calling his name out loud.

“Namjoon-ah?”

Namjoon lifts his sight and his jaw drops. Seokjin is taken aback by this and manages a shy smile when he finally stands up to greet him. “Jin.”

“It’s been a while,” he offers a quick bow, knowing he’s no longer in South Korea, understanding that probably Namjoon doesn’t do this anymore. His heart beats slowly but hard this time. It’s not painful at all. It’s weird in a way, but exciting.

“It’s been a while, indeed,” Namjoon agrees, nodding. He bows back and takes a moment to look at him, making Seokjin say the first thing he has in mind.

“You’re tall.”

Namjoon opens his mouth again and stops smiling. “Pardon?”

“I mean,” Seokjin starts correcting himself, blushing. “You’re taller now.”

Seokjin looks at Namjoon’s face trying to find something that could make him feel better. He’s making a fool out of himself and he needs reassurance. He knows the person he called to get help from is right in front of him and that this, his presence, should be enough, but there’s something else he wants— he _needs—_ to see.

It’d make him feel better, this little detail, one he used to look to feel  
_(loved)_ _  
_ reassured, safe.

It doesn’t take long before Namjoon starts smiling and all Seokijn sees is this: his smiley eyes, two crescent moons, and _that_ dimple, the one on his left cheek, the one that makes him  
_(god he looks just the same but so grown up at the same time how does he make it so easy to)_ _  
_ feel at home.

“I guess I am,” Namjoon chuckles, looking around. “You have everything with you?”

Seokjin nods, patting his backpack. “Yeah.”

Puzzled, Namjoon looks at him. Seokjin is about to ask him if everything’s okay until he sees Namjoon looking around as if trying to find the rest of his luggage.

“Ah!,” Seokjin says, with a smile. “The rest will arrive later. Don’t worry about it. We’re good to go.”

Namjoon nods.

“Then let’s go home, Jin.”

_Home._

Seokjin nods too.

“By the way,” Namjoon says once he’s sitting on the driver’s seat of his truck, ready to take off. “I tried calling you a few times…”

Seokjin freezes on the spot. “Sorry,” he begins and tries his best not to stutter. “I…”

“Your battery must’ve run empty,” he cuts him off, reaching for the glove compartment, in front of Seokjin’s knees. “I have a power bank here.”

“No,” Seokjin stops Namjoon’s hand with his own right before he opens the compartment. “No need.”

Namjoon doesn’t move. Seokjin knows he’s waiting for an explanation, so he sighs.

“I dropped my phone inside the toilet.”

He thinks Namjoon will ask why. He’s sure Namjoon is going to ask how can he be so clumsy. He holds on and waits for the scolding to start, but this never happens.

Instead, his friend starts laughing.

It’s contagious. Soon enough, they’re both laughing inside their truck, time hasn’t passed and they’re back to where they were before they drifted apart, many years ago.

“Oh, dear,” he looks worried. “Did you…?”

Seokjin opens his backpack and takes his phone out only using his thumb and index finger, with disgust.

Namjoon lets go of a tiny sound of utmost repugnance, not able to hold it back.

Seokjin cracks up at his expression and starts laughing with his known windshield-like laugh. Namjoon laughs harder at this and pats him on the knee where his left hand is resting, squeezing it for a millisecond and turning his back to him in order to reach for his seatbelt.

He drives off the highway and turns the GPS with his own address, asking Seokjin if he wants to listen to some music or if he wants to rest a bit before getting there. Seokjin opts for the first, holding back his laughter until Namjoon makes the same sound he made seconds ago at the thought of his phone falling inside a toilet, and they lose it again.

It feels bad.

As pleasant as the ride to Namjoon’s place is, Seokjin feels uneasy. They talk about Namjoon’s latest achievements in the literary world and they speak about many things he could do in England, such as visiting some British landmarks he shouldn’t miss, trying the local food and exploring the countryside where apparently he owns another house.

Saying yes to all of this, his stomach twists into a knot.

It does feel bad. Lying to him.

He’s not okay with the decision he made about not telling Namjoon everything right away. All these plans he’s saying and everything he’s building up for him can’t be supported and can’t be done because he’s very close to being broke. He has enough money to live well for three weeks, maybe four.

Seokjin holds on to the idea that he’ll find some courage as soon as he settles in, maybe tomorrow, and then he swears he’ll tell him everything.

But this is easier said than done when all he feels around Namjoon is an unexpected peace. He drinks up his laughter like the tastiest water he’s ever drunk. He looks at him without blinking, not wanting to miss a detail from him, thinking he’ll wake up in the middle of his flight, or worse, in Seoul.

Seokjin knew this was something that could happen. Not wanting to go back. Wanting to stay here, around him, around the only person in this world that makes him feel safe, at home. Around the only person that makes his living less heavy by just existing.

Namjoon doesn’t deserve this. The lies. The secrets. He’d like to know about the thing that’s been troubling him for the past six years.

But he's not strong enough to say it out loud. Not yet.

He's not sure he'll ever be.

He figures only time will tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget: kudos and comments keep authors active~.
> 
> Ramblings between updates @ [TWT](https://twitter.com/shampoofaeries)


	3. All the days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even if at some point Namjoon thought it would be delightful to see him choking on the galbi their grandparents made for him and couldn’t eat because— he swore at that moment he’d bend if he thought about it one more time—, he stole glances from him and turned away, embarrassed, whenever their eyes met.
> 
> He was gorgeous. Namjoon wasn’t blind.
> 
> He wasn’t confident, either, so he kept quiet until they all finished up their dishes, wondering this guy— what was his name?— would leave or stay for seconds.
> 
> Deep, deep down, he hoped for the latter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the delay. As you'll see, this chapter was hard to write.
> 
> I want to remember everybody here that this is a dark fic.
> 
> That's it. Enjoy. I sure did (and didn't) while writing it.

_When was it?  
_ _That you weren't there at the end of my day anymore_

 _When was it?  
_ _That even if we called, there wasn't much to say  
_

_And sometimes I miss the days from back then_

_When was it?  
_ _That we were waiting for us to grow up_

 _When was it?  
_ _That time started passing us by_

 **YOUNHA:** See You

  
  


It’s been three days.

She has patiently waited by her favorite spot in their living room, accidentally skipping meals, forgetting about getting up and avoiding the device that rests just a few inches away from her touch.

She tries to stay hopeful. She thinks he’ll call at any minute now. She’s dismissed annoying calls from her reading club friends, asking her questions she doesn’t know how to answer. She’s skipped washing up her hair, too, and let’s not begin with her sleeping schedule. Her bed hasn’t been made for a while, now that she’s sleeping on this couch; even if she denies it, there are hints that give away her obsession with not moving from that place. There’s a small blanket carefully tucked under the backrest, secured by its proximity to the wall,

“Ma?”

Her head turns to the sound of his oldest son’s voice.

“I’m gonna make some tea,” he says, his head being the only thing peeping behind the kitchen wall. “Do you want some?”

Choi Yoonyeong shakes her head, closing her eyes on a smile that doesn’t reach her lips. “I’m alright.”

The weight on her chest tells her otherwise, but she dismisses it, never minding the emptiness on her stomach and the coldness on her fingertips, already reaching the rest of her hands, climbing silently to the rest of her arms.

Sighing at the sight of his son bringing a silver tray to the coffee table, mounting a tea set on it, sided with a whistling teapot and sweets, she surrenders.

“Eat these,” he handles her a small plate with painted dandelions and hurries her to take a bite of the small mochi. “They go well with chamomile tea.”

The rich taste of mango fills her mouth when she starts eating it. Reluctantly, she chews the dessert and murmurs a soft _thanks_ while he pours the hot tea inside her teacup, handing it to her when he’s done. The amber liquid is not dark enough to hide the small dandelion at the bottom of her teacup.

Once she’s finished chewing, she blows the heat away from her tea and waits for her son to look at her. “He bought this tea set, you know that?”

Not so long ago his smile would have made her smile back effortlessly. Right now she can’t even bring her facial muscles to gestures other than worried ones.

“He did?” She nods.

“With one of his first payments. He couldn’t decide between a tea set or flowers, so he…” A laugh comes out of her mouth resembling a crow’s croak. “He thought…”

The crash between her feet is small, delicate, almost as if it didn’t want to completely break, not in front of them. The teacup slipped from her hands, pouring the hot liquid at her feet, but she’s too far gone when her son lifts her, feeling her low weight, her bones and paper-like skin between his arms, placing her away from the steam the tea emits, already getting colder by spreading itself on the ground.

“Ma…”

“He t-thought he could bring b-both,” she sobs, her hands trying to get a hold of a teacup that is not there anymore. “He w-wanted to s-surprise me. A w-week before Mother’s day, r-remember?”

He doesn’t. He tries to tell her he does, but he can’t find her face, buried between her hands.

“W-where is he, Seokjung? Why h-hasn’t he c-called?”

Kim Seokjung worries his own lip and crouches in front of her. “He’ll call, ma. He’s smart enough to stay safe. He’ll call as soon as he can. We urged him to do so.”

 _If he hasn’t… it must be for a reason,_ he wants to tell her, but that could only give her another reason to worry.

“He has enough money, Ma, he’ll be alright,” Seokjung coos, caressing her back on a reassuring gesture. It goes up and down as she cries and asks him questions that he, too, can’t answer. “He’ll be alright, ma. You raised him well. He’ll be alright on his own.”

There’s only so many times he can repeat this to himself until the phrase loses all of its meaning.

Nevertheless, he keeps on saying it, hoping there’s a big destiny out there listening to his voice— a plead—, noticing how hard he’s trying not to give up to sadness and worry, just like his mother would do if she were on her own.

Leaving college wasn’t easy. Seeing her wither and fade out day by day due to his brother’s situation wasn’t a walk in the park, either.

He’s doing what he can with what he has.

Seokjung hopes it’s enough to stay afloat at least for the rest of the week.

Namjoon tries hard not to shift to his side to look at him directly. The image of a ten-years-older Jin fills the corner of his eyes, cut in half by his glasses’ temples. Getting distracted by his face, the way he speaks now, or his clothes, could drive him off the driveway or make him slowdown his truck involuntarily, causing an inevitable accident.

He’s very careful not to lose control of his truck, treating his new guest with a natural sympathy he immediately finds kind of rusty, avoiding at all costs talking about topics that he flags as _too personal._

He makes a mental list with five of them, the first one being _What Are You Doing Here?,_ followed closely by _What Have You Been Up To?;_ the rest, too trivial but with a hint of riskiness he won’t toy with, are about _Them._

Their _Past Them._

He doesn’t really need to put much effort into it; he’s back to the spot he always had when they were friends back then: he’s listening intently to whatever Jin has to say about the driveway, about the way English people manage to live in a world that seems to be upside down to him, cracking up some jokes when he describes the city’s rhythm as ‘chaotically counterclockwise’ (Namjoon hears his laugh with joy, mirroring him and laughing with his belly full of an emotion he’d name _nostalgia—_ if only he were fully aware of it).

Still, between jokes and Jin’s fingers pointing here and there, Namjoon takes a few seconds to realize and tell himself that this is not the same Jin he thought he’d welcome.

_He’s different. That I expected. But…_

Contrary to what he pictured when he first received his calls a few days ago, Namjoon feels puzzled, even a little betrayed.

He thought he’d find Jin in shambles. Broken. Worried, at least, maybe not sad, but in a kind of emotional emergency he mentally prepared himself for.

And here he is now, poking the dreamcatcher hanging from the rearview mirror, talking about how he slept soundly during his flight, talking nonsense about someone smoking in the bathroom without any of the stewards and stewardesses noticing, adding what he’d do if he were the smoker, the way he’d hide, or…

Either way, Namjoon smiles through Jin’s speech, nodding here and there, joining him through his venting episode with small words or sounds, just enough response for him to keep on going.

Jin looks cheerful. Amused. Almost ecstatic, like an unsupervised kid that has eaten a lot of candy against all rules, possessed by a spirit of mischief.

When they stop at a red light, streets away from the one Namjoon lives in, he finally turns to see him. Something inside his heart tugs his breathing, letting him know he can’t hide his worrying thoughts nor sensitive topics from it.

But then Jin smiles. And so does he.

Greenlight comes up and they’re rolling again. Namjoon with both of his eyes on the road, Jin with his blabbering mouth filling the silence between them.

 _Maybe he’s the same,_ Namjoon tells himself. _Maybe he hasn’t changed much._

Every now and then, especially around summertime, Namjoon’s memory decides to bring everything back, placing a veil of melancholy above his shoulders, cuddling him with both sadness and happiness, inducing tears in his eyes, tears shed long, long ago, buried within a box inside his heart he never forgets to dust off every damn time this planet decides to take a whole round trip around the sun.

He blames his memory for rewriting itself all the time, having a voice of its own, telling him every single story he’s lived so far with details he often finds unnecessary.

Sometimes he’s happy he’s able to remember stuff nobody can remember that easily. If he tries to recall a song he listened to when he was 16 and accidentally stumbles upon it while he’s driving and turning up the radio, he marvels at the way every sound sparks up something inside his brain, filling it with color, shapes, and sounds he didn’t even know he tied together so tightly, released now inside him at the first chord, tune or tempo he’s listening to, hitting him with a force he didn’t know he was able to feel.

It’s a bad thing this also happens with unpleasant memories.

Tightening his grip around the steering wheel, he lets himself be submerged under Jin’s voice, going up and down, still telling him about his trip and how bumpy the flight was, not going into details, changing the subject quickly as soon as they reach topics that could cross the thin line between trivial and personal at any moment.

 _I wonder what he’s been through all these years,_ Namjoon thinks as he parks outside his place, hoping he’ll see more of his friend from now on, turning off the truck’s engine But he misses Jin’s face, currently looking outside the window, eerily silent.

 _The Monie Warning,_ Namjoon remembers. _I need to tell him about—_

“Jin?”

It’s almost instant. Jin turns around, with his backpack’s straps already grasped by both of his hands. The look he gives him, with his mouth half-opened in a _woah_ he extended since he realized they were in front of Namjoon’s house, now dying under his breath, confused and a bit overjoyed. “You live here?”

Namjoon gulps, his mouth suddenly dry. He nods and he tries to reach Jin’s eyes with his, but he’s turning away again. “Jin. You still like dogs, right?”

It’s past midnight, both too late and too early in the morning and on the inside of Namjoon’s body to be fully conscious of the bumps and jumps his heart makes, pounding within his chest with a heartbeat that makes him feel dizzy when Jin’s face lights up with a warm smile that makes his eyes shine, the street light a few meters away being the only thing that brings Namjoon back to reality. “I sure do!”

He doesn’t have time to tell Jin the reason for his question, for he is already unbuckling his seatbelt and getting out of Namjoon’s truck. Mirroring him, they’re both outside the car and inside his house in a matter of seconds. Namjoon chooses to stay at the door to finally look at his friend without thinking about anything else but him. He asks himself all the Forbidden Questions and wishes he could see the answer he expects the most: how much has he _really_ changed, both physically and mentally? And how is he still the same _somehow?,_ he points himself out, standing still by his main entrance’s door frame.

He leans against the wall, seeing him walking carefully and looking around, as if taking in every little detail of his house he’s able to see; Namjoon lets Jin wander inside his house in the dark for a few moments, then decides to help him with the lights, reaching the switch with a mechanic gesture.

This startles Jin, who turns around with both of his eyes widely open. Namjoon murmurs a soft apology, making him smile absently, with a hand on his chest where he assumes his heart jumped.

 _Scaredy-cat,_ Namjoon jokes to himself, immediately stopping as his eyes travel to Monie’s spot by the stairs, finding it empty. At the kitchen, Jin’s voice asks something out loud but Namjoon’s sight and hearing are far gone, having a new urgency coming through his mind about his unpredictable pet, not resting at the spot he usually does.

Namjoon wants to ask Jin to repeat his question but he interrupts himself when he spots Monie atop the stairs, his tail down and a wary face that can only mean trouble.

Lost in his thoughts, Seokjin crosses the front door almost in a haze, not listening specifically to anything, just taking in every piece of information he has in front of him, adjusting his sight to the walls, the floor, the furniture and the smell of Namjoon’s place.

Desire fills his mind once he drops his backpack on the closest couch, so he stops.

It’s not a rational desire; this desire is much stronger than any desire he’s ever felt. That’s how he knows it’s not something he thinks he needs but something he, his body, _actually needs._

His veins, his blood, and every thought buzzing through his head, crossing in every direction, demand just one thing.

_Coffee._

It’s a rather musky smell more than a stale one, but it’s enough to make his mouth water.

Seokjin can’t see much, but the furniture around the house seems new to him. His gaze focuses on a spot a few steps away, where a crystal door leads to the outside world again. The moonlight and the fading yellow light from the streets guide his eyes through what he thinks it is a garden, but he loses the sight of it when the lights inside Namjoon’s house fill the space he’s standing on.

_(!!!!!!!!!!)_

He looks back to find his friend smiling, feeling his startled heart beating inside his chest. He hears a murmur but doesn’t really worry about it, too curious from the smell of coffee and the whole composition of Namjoon’s first floor.

It sure isn’t like he thought it would be.

None of this, actually, but he starts by whatever it is in his proximity.

The first thing he realizes is that this place is clean enough but not too clean enough to be Namjoon’s.

At least not one belonging to the Namjoon he met ten years ago, a neat literature student that had a place for almost every belonging.

Seconds after, it just jumps to him that  
 _(i)  
_ this is a place where a grown-ass man lives, and not the kind of man that  
 _(i thought)  
_ cleans every day, but just a man that lives day by day doing his best with what he has.

Just like the third strike on any popular game, he finds himself swept by the fact that maybe this Namjoon is not the same he remembers.

Smiling against his will, weakened and shattered by his own handmade fantasy, Seokjin walks towards the kitchen, the only place on this floor that looks pristine clean, finding an empty pot of coffee. Lingering in the small space that frames the place he doesn’t know Namjoon usually avoids the most, the bitter smell of coffee tricks him into thinking it was made just minutes ago when in reality it was made hours ago.

“Do you have any left?” he finds himself asking, turning around to look at Namjoon, but he stops himself midway. “Oh?”

Namjoon’s eyes follow Seokjin’s gaze as they spot Monie, already walking up to him, warily. His round eyes look at his master, then to him, to and fro, as if waiting for an introduction.

“Monie,” Namjoon calls him, hurrying to find a space between both of them and stopping the dog on his intention of jumping on Seokjin. “This is Jin.”

Seokjin crouches and looks at him. Not only he’s beautiful, but he’s also so damn fluffy and white, just like  
 _(jjangu?)  
_ a cloud. Seokjin wants to pet him right away. He wishes to squish him so badly, he forgets about the coffee he wanted so much just seconds ago.

He waits, though. He knows how to behave in front of wary dogs. “Is he friendly?”

“I’d say he’s more friendly than I’d like,” Namjoon scoffs. “He’s just too unpredictable.”

Seokjin’s gaze sticks to the dog’s fur, patted by his owner. He loses his train of thought when he sees Namjoon’s fingers against the whiteness of Monie, and disconnecting the last brain cells he has inside his brain, too tired to keep functioning correctly, Seokjin licks his lips.

They’re dry. He could use a drink. But right now this feels way more important.

“You can pet him, Jin,” Namjoon smiles. “He loves it.”

Seokjin opens his hand and offers it just for the dog to smell it and approach his touch, making Seokjin close his eyes in a tender smile he can’t repress. Taking advantage of this, Monie pushes him and makes him sit on the floor with a thud. The wetness of Monie’s tongue finds its way to Seokjin’s face, and he laughs as the animal drives him to tears he sheds with his fingers once Namjoon helps him to sit on his heels.

Seokjin laughs at Namjoon’s apologies, but he doesn’t stop petting Monie and the animal is thankful for all the attention he’s got for that friendly attack (that could’ve cost him his dinner).

“I guess he’s okay with you being here,” Namjoon says, holding Monie back by petting him on his chest and back with both hands. Seokjin pats his jeans finding dog fur on the black denim he’s wearing, remembering for an instant he’s got to wash up soon, or else he’ll start smelling again. “Maybe too much, hm?”

Seokjin seizes this opportunity to stand up, prompting his friend to do the same. But as if he were too weak to resist Monie’s desire for pats and scratches, Namjoon stays crouching in front of him and keeps on talking to him with a voice that sounds way too silly to Seokjin’s taste. Endeared by the way Namjoon is telling Monie that _Jin will be staying with them for a while,_ Seokjin notices Namjoon is not looking so lifts his arm a little to smell himself. Thinking of asking him for a clean towel and a place to crash and pass out, Seokjin remembers he hasn’t eaten, either.

And god, wouldn’t he  
 _(be a pain in the ass asking for all these stuff)  
_ kill for a glass of water.

“Namjoon-ah.”

His friend stops petting Monie, looks at him and smiles. “Yes?”

There’s something in this picture, seeing Namjoon petting a dog whose fur is white, his smile painted between two dimples, his gleaming eyes, the scent of coffee dissipating in the air, the way Monie shakes himself up, the cold of the morning arriving slowly outside the glass door; Seokjin doesn’t know what is it exactly, but his thoughts stop and his mouth starts speaking before he can stop himself.

“Do you remember Jjangu?”

Namjoon opens his mouth to a minimum, letting out his breath. With it goes his smile, leaving his lips. His dimples disappear.

Seokjin notices way too late that his own body is shaking and that he has tears already vignetting his eyes. He’s unaware of the speed in which Namjoon stands up, holding his gaze with his eyes, stopping everything, even time.

“I remember him,” Namjoon answers firmly. He even nods. “Of course I remember Jjangu.”

The night Jin called him in tears is a night Namjoon doesn’t think he’ll ever forget.

It was one of the last calls they shared before losing contact, Namjoon recalls. It didn’t rain and it wasn’t cloudy, either. Nothing memorable happened that day. But that night was a dark one, and he knew in his heart something was going to happen. He even made instant coffee to stay up, thinking he’d better be ready in case anything happened, like a fire on a house near his’, a car crash on the nearest avenue— whatever it was, he’d be ready.

Namjoon never thought he’d be struck with bad news in a place he never worried to check.

He was studying hard for his mid-terms, taking breaks to re-read _Middlesex,_ a novel he had postponed until the last minute. A half-written paper greeted him through his computer screen, making his eyes water.

If he knew back then that many years behind that computer screen would lead him to a habit of wearing glasses he would never get rid of, maybe he’d taken breaks between his intense homework sessions.

Feeling like giving up and taking a power nap, he decided to fight his laziness for a few minutes, convincing himself to finish it without procrastinating anymore; then the phone on the first floor of his mother’s house rang, making him forget his weak self-encouragement. He ran down the stairs, not wanting his mother to wake up, and picked it up.

The first thing he heard was someone’s sobs. Panicked, he addressed the caller in the best manners possible until the person behind the line calmed down.

“It’s Jjangu,” the person spat, breaking down again. Still, the voice managed to form a sentence Namjoon could never forget. “They’re putting him down, Namjoon-ah. They’re putting down my baby. Jjangu.”

They must’ve stayed on the line the whole day. Namjoon didn’t go to school and he didn’t turn in the paper he was working on when Jin’s call reached his other side of the world. Seokjin stayed at home with Jjangu on his lap and Namjoon on the line, and they both spent Jjangu’s last day the only way they could.

There was no possible way of traveling there on time, there was no other way of supporting him but this one. In his heart of hearts, Namjoon cursed the distance between them once again and bit back promises, sweet nothings, words that had inklings of regret and guilt, not to make Jin more miserable than he already was.

He always regretted not knowing what really happened to Jjangu. Knowing he was too crushed to talk about it, he’d never put Jin through the medical explanation of Jjangu’s last day on earth, so he never asked.

Namjoon showed Jin he cared, nonetheless. That night he could’ve promised him the world, but he refrained from doing so, not wanting to ruin their relationship with more promises he knew he couldn’t keep. He was late already with the one they made when they first said goodbye.

No matter what went through his heart, Namjoon stopped himself and thought thoroughly every word he spoke to him that day.

While Namjoon heard them play lazily with the phone cord and some other toys, Namjoon’s mother wrote a letter and sent a check with money to Jin’s parents, covering at least half of the long-distance call without even asking first if that was something they wanted. Jin cried when he gave Jjangu his last beefcake and Namjoon whispered soft, loving words to his friend, hurting on the inside with reality playing with them like the evil mistress it always is.

Too tired to stay awake, Jin fell asleep as their day ended, leaving Namjoon the responsibility of ending their call. He heard his breathing for one last time and thanked him for taking care of Jjangu the only way he knew how.

He thought of telling him how much he loved them both but halted at this when he heard the phone being picked up by Jin’s brother, Seokjung, telling him Jin had fallen asleep with Jjangu on his arms.

Namjoon thanked Seokjung, taken aback by the idea he had of him: he thought Seokjung had already graduated from college and that he was working at Busan, just like Jin told him on a phone call, around six months ago.

Immersed inside his own thoughts, time slapped him back to reality, leaving him hanging by a thread like a rag doll when the call finally ended.

They didn’t say goodbye to each other nor promised to meet again soon, just like they had done four years ago.

 _Maybe it was for the best,_ Namjoon thought right after, trying to convince himself as he started an apology letter to his literature teacher.

That day all he did was related to making up for his latest decisions academic-wise. As he typed letters, essays, and whatnot, he only thought of Jjangu and Jin. His eyes kept on getting watery every now and then, and he sure blamed his screen every time. 

_It’d have been impossible,_ Jin reflected, waking up and finding his pet still asleep between his arms, calm as ever with an alpaca toy between his paws as if it were clutching it tightly. _We would’ve stayed on the line forever if we could._

Taking up the courage to take Jjangu to the vet, Jin did what he had to do and didn’t look back. 

They never realized completely which departure hurt the most.

They just knew it all hurt like hell.

No dimensions. No levels.

Just pain.

Namjoon keeps a wooden box underneath his desk at his Poetry and Tea room where he keeps Jjangu’s pictures, the ones Jin sent him a month after he put him down, pictures he saw once and kept away, not strong enough to handle the sight of the polaroids where his co-owned pet smiled, especially not strong enough to see the ones where he was still alive and held by Jin, an image that could burn and ache for months inside his chest, just like an endless forest fire.

So yeah. Saying he remembers is a very shy thing to say.

He remembers everything so well.

Seokjin avoids his eyes just to meet Monie’s. “He…”

_(i thought)_

Monie had walked to his spot and sat there somewhere during their silence, watching them, waiting for them to make a move or say an order. When they hadn’t, he had decided to lay down, falling asleep almost instantly.

“I thought he was Jjangu,” Seokjin utters, blinking. The tears on his eyes don’t fall, they cling to his eyelids stubbornly. “For a moment, you know?”

Namjoon offers Seokjin a half-smile. “I know what you mea—”

“I can’t believe it’s been seven years already.”

They look at each other the only way they know: as if they were urging the other to say something but at the same time trying to get a hold of themselves just by their eyes locking on one another. Not minding at all if silence falls between them like a third-wheeling guest no one invited, they extend the silence and welcome it like an old friend.

It’s their silence, after all. When shared, it doesn’t feel so unbearable anymore.

“Sounds unreal.”

 _“Feels_ unreal,” Seokjin agrees, smiling. It’s a dishonest smile, he acknowledges this. He can’t stop his lips, though. The acting they’re accustomed to shines and stars at every opportunity they have. “The flight, this house…”

_(you)_

“Sure does,” Namjoon concludes, repressing a yawn, opening his eyes a little bit in a gesture Seokjin recognizes from the past as one he usually makes when he’s sleepy. Paying close attention to him for the first time in like forever, he realizes he looks tired. There are little bags under his lower eyelashes, darkening his skin in grayish hues he immediately takes the   
_(blame)_ _  
_ responsibility for.

“We should rest,” he offers, taking off to one of the couches he dropped his backpack a few minutes ago. “You must be tired.”

Seokjin takes off his denim jacket and places it on a couch. He feels a tug on his right arm.

“You’re not thinking of sleeping down here?”

He turns to see his friend, his frowning brow and confused eyes. Is he asking a question or ordering him around? “Why shouldn’t I—”

“You’re my guest!” Namjoon grabs his stuff and tells Seokjin to follow him. “You should sleep in a decent bed. Your flight must’ve taken some years off your back.”

Not knowing what to do, Seokjin does as he asks after a few seconds. He can hear Monie behind them, and it doesn’t take long to see him sprinting to his right, rushing himself upstairs in order to beat him on a race he just invented.

Seokjin can’t help but laugh.

This time it’s a real one. Coming out of his lungs like the first gasp of air someone takes after rising up from the depths of the sea, giving fresh air to a pair of neglected lungs that once knew nothing but struggle, it bubbles out of him and reaches Namjoon, who also starts laughing.

Tears appear too, but they’re just an attempt of a cry he won’t let out. At least not here.

Namjoon consults with his brain— way too tired to fight him back— if he should make some tea or prepare iced americanos for him and Jin.

If he made coffee he’d probably stay awake until tomorrow’s night. So, tea it is.

He remembers he bought a few packs of herbs he planned to mix in order to make the make-believe sakura tea he usually drinks when he writes. While mixing those, his thoughts wander inside his head and end up wondering exactly how caffeine could affect Jin.

Namjoon knows Jin gets a bit hyper with an uncertain amount of sugar, but he never really saw him drinking coffee, just once: that one night they stayed awake to catch a premiere at the movie theatre.

He sets a reminder inside his head to ask Jin about the latest movies he’s seen. Maybe they could catch another premiere soon, just to remember old times.

“Huh,” Namjoon stops himself in the middle of his kitchen. His hand, halfway into the herb package he opened, stops too.

_We’d go as friends, of course._

He hears water running upstairs, meaning Jin has just entered the shower.

It’s the first time after a while that he has someone staying over. The promise he made to himself not to let another man inside his house this easy hits him right in his ego.

Namjoon frowns at his own disapproval as if defying it.

_But this is Jin. He’s my…_

That’s all it takes for his brain to give up.

His guts take over, instead.

Shaking his head, Namjoon goes back to the last thing he was thinking about but this only worsens his case: he’s soon hit by the embarrassment that causes thinking of Jin taking a shower in his bathroom, taking a hot shower _without_ clothes, just to end thinking that he’ll inevitably see him dressed in _his_ clothes.

Namjoon drops the bowl where the leaves and herbs rest, the sound of the wooden counter snapping back at him, as if telling him he needs to get his shit together.

What unsettles him the most is that he’s thought of Seokjin as a friend but not… 

_He’s my friend but he’s also my ex._

No. No way. That’s a hard word for him to pronounce, even inside his own mind.

Besides, he never really saw Jin as his boyfriend. They never named whatever they had and—

The cold wind makes him shiver dangerously as he slides the crystal door open.

Namjoon takes a seat atop of the stone stairs and lets his gaze be lost on the bushes he recently planted.

“What am I doing,” he sighs. He shakes his head again and pats his cheeks as an attempt of waking himself up. Even if his feet are growing cold rapidly, his face feels like a thousand suns piled together. “He was never your boyfriend. Get it together, Namjoon.”

When he feels he’s fully awake by the cold he goes back inside. He resumes his doings with the tea, waiting for Jin to finish washing up.

_Jin was never mine._

Relieved, he finds himself a little bit more calm than before. He repeats to himself he needs to get it together and, when the time comes, he’ll stop getting shaken up by the fact that maybe they didn’t mean something _that_ special to each other.

Deeply submerged inside his thoughts, he finds out the boiling water is ready to be served way too soon.

Since he hears the water still running, Namjoon sits by one of the chairs in the middle of the kitchen and the stairs. He lays his head on his forearms and waits.

_He was never mine._

He falls asleep.

He doesn’t worry about smiling anymore, and his slightly hunched back twists his posture in an insecure one. His brow furrows in a gesture that helps his eyes not to cry.

Everything inside him changes the moment he locks the door and steps inside Namjoon’s bathroom.

It’s small. The tiles that cover both the floor and half of the walls reflect a million Seokjins that he pretends not to see. He stops on his tracks and closes his eyes.

There are no leaks. No sounds around him that give away the bad condition of the plumbing. He tries to spot any kind of sound outside of here but finds nothing. Just silence.

As he walks up to the shower he knows he’s safe. These walls are, inside his head, a cage. And even if this is the first time he steps into this small bathroom, he recognizes it. The only place that makes him feel at peace. The cage he built for himself to escape from his real world, even for five minutes. 

Showers have always been his safe space. Every shower he’s taken in his life has been like this. A cure-all for everything he’s gone through, be it a scrap on the knee from his latest fall, a fight with his hyung over their videogames, a disagreement with his mother about how many hours he stayed awake against her strict curfew, a mistake in a play he knew it was meant to be perfectly executed.

For Seokjin, taking a shower meant much more than just washing up. It meant hiding. It meant turning off his thoughts. Turning off the world. Pausing time.

Seokjin steps inside the shower, seeing there’s a glass door that can be closed and opened at will, and he wonders about the products Namjoon uses on a daily basis.

There’s a brand new bottle of shampoo, no conditioner to be seen. Seokjin finds a small soap bar he instantly grabs with his hand, leading it to his nose to smell it.

It smells like peppermint, but it’s a more pungent smell, like old leaves, _maybe aloe?_

Seokjin decides it’ll do as he steps outside the shower, sliding the door closed, turning the water faucet he thinks it’s the warm one.

This had always been his secret hideout. Nobody but him was ever allowed to enter the same sanctuary he’d built over the years. He came up with this ever since he was a child and always kept it in the bottom of his heart, a secret just for him, how easily his heartbeats slowed down when he felt the first drops of warm water running down his skin, opening every pore, cleansing his soul,  
 _(what’s left of it)_   
taking him back to a place where he always knew he could find peace.

He licks his lips again and remembers his own words   
_(i can’t believe it’s been seven years already it seems like everything happened)_   
just a moment ago.

Seokjin knows he wasn’t talking about Jjangu.

He undresses while he sees steam coming out of the tallest part of the shower, noticing the ceilings at Namjoon’s place are a bit taller than the ones he’s seen throughout his entire life.

His thoughts are interrupted by a faint odor coming from his body, urging him to cry.

But he doesn’t. Not yet.

Seokjin turns around to put his dirty clothes in a hamper. He is careful enough not to look at his own reflection on the mirror just above the sink. It’d kill him, to see himself like this. To see his skin. To see what he did to himself hours ago. To see how deep _he’s_ still buried inside him, inside his two fists, his nails and rows of teeth, waiting for the moment he screws up to act up again against his own body.

His eyes travel to the bathroom’s door handle, making sure it’s locked. A part of him always doublechecks now.

Ever since that night. The night Seokjin blocked out of his memory for his own sake. The night that gave him another reason to stay inside of his bathroom cage way longer than he was used to, hiding and hurting, washing up unwanted kisses and a trail of hands printed on his body, a trail so sticky that made him feel like the sole of his shoes.

The night he slept there for two days in a row, curled up in a ball of dry soap, snot, and tears once the water turned cold, knowing he’d better stay out of it if he didn’t want to catch a cold or hypothermia.

When he tried washing up again he found out warm water was no longer coming out of any of the faucets.

It never came back. Not for five years.

Until now.

There’s enough steam around him so he steps inside the shower, barefoot, completely exposed. His bruises tickle at first when hit by the constant droplets of water, drizzling upon the uneven spots and patches of bluish-purple of his skin as mildly hard as the pressure lets them be. Then they start to ache due to the high temperature the water’s in. He doesn’t complain for a while, feeling this strange sensation of pleasure rising up his belly, through his chest, right into his cheeks. He feels short-breathed but pays no mind.

Prior to all this, he wasn’t sure a person could miss this level of scalding hot water against one’s body, but now he realizes he actually missed this.

When Seokjin feels his skin getting too sensitive he knows it’s been too much and makes sure to handle the shower’s faucets trying to find the right warmth he likes.

His hand holds onto the cold handle, finding relief on his right palm when he does, starting to feel the difference between scorching droplets of water and warm ones against his skin.

He sighs, relieved, when his body’s knots defuse and stretch under the perfect level of warm water.

Realizing he missed this through  
 _(years)  
_ situations that made him feel miserable, situations where he needed to hide from  
 _(a punch in the face a hair pull a broken finger)_ _  
_ the monster he was living with, knowing it’s of no use now since he’s away   
_(oh, am i)_ _  
_ but feeling relieved nonetheless, Seokjin’s face distorts into pure anguish.

He starts to cry, his moans of pain muffled against one of his forearms, where his upper row of teeth sink and bite until they break the skin.

Seokjin tastes his own blood and cries even harder.

If he had seen his reflection, he would’ve seen a set of wrathful eyes instead of his own.

  
All he could think of was how hard they were going to have it if he wasn’t on time.

They wouldn’t reprimand him, they wouldn’t cut his payment nor kick him before dinner time. They’d understand his tardiness, they’d make up excuses for him, cuddling him like the son he wasn’t, and they’d probably offer him one or two days off for his student ass to get his homework done on time.

He could never tell them he had stayed up late playing videogames. It wasn’t a postponed homework thing he needed to finish nor a workload issue getting out of hand, tiring him more than they’d ever wanted. He just knew nighttime was the best time to play them, tied to a strange fondness he had to the Super Mario saga, a fondness he discovered with his brother since the day they received their first portable consoles as a Christmas gift, on a windy day of 1999.

Seokjin remembers himself and his brother on their Game Boy Color, side by side on their patio, bellies itching due to their t-shirts going up and leaving their skin exposed to the dirt and uneven patches of grass, both laying down under a street light that barely shone white light to their screens, helping them find their way through bushes and trainers, Seokjin with his Pikachu and his brother with a Wartortle soon-to-be Blastoise.

There was no other moment he enjoyed the most but this one; even though it meant for them to sleep so little, they’d stay there leveling up their pocket monsters until one of them fell asleep, rain started to pour, or their mother’s cough interrupted them from upstairs, fully awake but tired enough not to go down and scold them, knowing it’d be of no use. They weren’t little kids anymore; still, she liked to show them every now and then who had the upper hand at home, and her _ahem ahem_ in the middle of the night did the work just fine.

Unfortunately, Seokjin was the one that kept this silent and sneaky habit for more than eight years and even after, when his brother took off to college in Busan. He’d had stopped playing two years before he’d taken off, so he left Seokjin pretty much everything he owned videogame-wise when he traveled to what Seokjin thought was _the other side of the world._

On days he missed him the most, Seokjin would turn on his old Game Boy Color, its bubblegum pink color already faded by time’s passing and clammy hands, setting aside his Nintendo DS and modern games, always returning to the ones he played with his brother.

He never dealt with nostalgia in a way he could meet it halfway. He usually let it engulf him, taking time out of his hands, doing as it pleased with his doings. The result, well… 

Hearing his steps echoing on the pavement he left behind as he ran, Seokjin promised himself he’d never stay up playing videogames again. If he did, it’d be for a good reason. He had to outgrown his habit either way since he was an adult now.

At least he was supposed to act like one. During the daytime, Seokjin worked at a family store that provided goods of excellent quality for a low price. His tasks were the ones of “heavy-duty”: lifting boxes, placing them underneath some counters where the owners of the store could reach the goods with no problem, helping them dust over the high places they couldn’t reach, running errands whenever they felt too tired to travel long or short distances.

He received, in exchange for his hard work, a weekly payment he saved partially for his career but also spent wisely: he helped his mother with groceries and bills, paid for his daily expenses when he went to the movie theatre or shopping for clothes.

Seokjin’s mother and him never really talked about it, understanding each other’s silence, supporting themselves against their own world and fears; knowing they’d been struggling for so long, they were already tired of every single personal battle they’d had fought in the past.

They never talked about how melancholy his mother got every winter, or how insecure and small Seokjin felt in comparison to his friends, studying at the moment in colleges of all sorts all around South Korea.

One of them was an engineer; another one studied something related to plastic arts; the third one was the busiest one, studying hard to become the best doctor.

And then there he was, still at his mother’s house, waiting for the money to pile up until he could try again, practicing his acting and memorizing skills to aspire for a scholarship that never seemed to be granted to talentless, clumsy kids like him.

He had applied to study dramatic arts and failed. Later that year he applied again… and failed (again). They ran out of money, not enough for a single mother who was already paying for his son’s college in Busan, so he had to get a job.

Sure, his only friends right now spoke to him through a computer with slow internet, away and studying hard on their respective schools, and while that made him feel cheery, knowing he had loyal friends that kept in touch with him no matter their student lives, it also made his self-esteem go down, unconscious of his real skills, daydreaming of achieving many great things in a short amount of time, his expectations so high he never felt like he was moving but just merely surviving day by day.

Seokjin often wondered how lonely and morose he would’ve turned out to be if he hadn’t this routine of his, although a bit sabotaged by himself on long nights where he didn’t want to sleep early.

The thought of him enjoying his oversleeping dreams made him feel uneasy (not to say guilty), hurrying his feet as fast as he could to arrive on time. He looked to the supermarket’s clock and knew he was not that late, but that day they were supposed to restock the store and the thought of old people lifting heavy boxes he was supposed to lift, breaking their backs or hands or fingers—

Seokjin was never a fan of sports. He got tired easily, sweated a lot, and often felt he looked funny, as tall as he was, even when he was walking. Still, not minding this last embarrassing picture inside his brain, he was walking as fast as he could. He had promised them he’d be early every morning, and knew he’d broken this promise with his worst tardiness record of six minutes past the usual hour they expected him to appear, but—

As he jogged through the smaller streets of the district they lived in, he noticed something.

Stopping, feeling his heart on his neck, taking a moment to catch a breath, he saw the streets he was running on, deserted except for those daily workers going to their offices, construction sites, stores.

Not a single student was on sight.

_Please come a bit later next week._

He didn’t remember the gramps at the store he worked at had told him they’d be busy that week, asking for his help as they did every week, only an hour later.

Seokjin stood there, not knowing what to do.

He wasn’t late.

For the first time in forever, he was early. He could go back to his home, but that could mean he’d be in danger of falling asleep again, missing his whole shift, or… 

He could arrive early to the store, with a 98% chance of finding it closed.

He was pretty sure they’d told him the reason for this so he kept on thinking about it, not noticing his feet had already made a decision, moving forwards and following the direction they were initially running to.

 _We’ll pick up…_ What? What was it?

Seokjin almost ate up half of his brain trying to remember.

It wasn’t until he made the last turn it hit him.

There was a bicycle leaning against the mailbox.

_We’ll pick up our grandson at the airport._

He stopped on his tracks and thought the best he could do was to go back, but his legs  
 _(!!!!!!!!!!)_ _  
_ were not responding.

A faint scent of cooked meat filled the air and reached his nose.

His stomach growled.

Seokjin swears he saw two rows of bright yellow letters in front of his eyes where he could read  
 _ **(G** **AME OVE** **R)**_  
the sentence that urged him to go to sleep every night.

Pretending he couldn’t read, eyes too sore from tiredness, bright lightning, and high-contrast colors, Seokjin always ignored that sentence.

He did the same that day and continued walking.

  
  
  


They didn’t know much English and his Korean was more than rusty, but they made it work through basic words of kindness they all knew from heart, small gestures such as gifts from their respective country, and food.

Tons of food.

Namjoon wanted to visit them since forever. Living in the UK all his life was good, he didn’t complain at all, but once he found out he had living grandparents in Ilsan, he couldn’t stop himself from pestering his mother about making a trip once he reached his majority of age.

She was reluctant, though. She had her reasons and spoke to him about it. They went through many hours with different arguments, and they could've gone for ages, but then Namjoon cornered her verbally— he was way too good with words even then, much to his mother’s dismay— and assured her he would never take the risk of doing something too stupid to let him know he was there. Namjoon swore to her that his father would never know about his trip to South Korea.

However, they both agreed he'd travel once he turned nineteen, the very next summer after that year, and not sooner. They contacted Namjoon’s grandparents in Ilsan, with whom his mother never lost contact, and the whole family rearranged their schedules not to forget about this event.

It was settled then and soon enough he was there, full of expectations, the first one already fulfilled: Namjoon had always been concerned about his relatives, wondering how they were, what kind of voices they had, if they were tall like he and his mother, if they shared things only DNA can silently tie between people to make them share gestures, skin hues, length of limbs, patches of hair.

(He would've been a great geneticist, if only he were interested in that. Instead, he wanted to write his family biography. Connect the dots, draw a giant tree— he always pictured it as a bonsái, growing strong, slow, but wild at the same time—, explaining through his own language the story of his family, making up for those who left or had to be left along the way.)

The first thing he saw was the man whom he had gotten his dimple from, passed through generations and landing on his face like a silent print of DNA he’d try to track later without success. He took a mental picture of his grandpa’s smile, a crescent moon whose marquee was a pair of dimples he immediately recognized as the same as his.

The second thing that amazed him was the fact that they all spoke the same language without knowing. They communicated through affection and family inquiries interrupted by small pinches on the cheeks by his grandma, telling him how big he’d gotten, how tiny he seemed he would grow on the pictures his mother sent them every year. And he understood her.

Namjoon was sure he’d make the most out of this trip in many ways. He had to. Next autumn, as he explained his grandparents with a broken Korean and a sticky English accent, he was to go to a big college to study Humanities.

They were already so proud of him, they made sure to cheer him up as high as the sky was. His grandma noted on their calendar the last day Namjoon was going to spend with them and placed a memo a week before his departure date:

**For Joonie:**

new pencils

good luck charm

notebooks

And even though he didn't want them to worry nor to press themselves to get those things (he wouldn't stand the thought of them running to get things he certainly didn't really need— he had enough supplies and didn't believe in luck), he smiled through it all, bowed, and made sure to write his mom every day about how good things were, especially about the way his grandparents made him feel at home.

 _Never mind the food they make, which is just like heaven,_ he thought. _But I won't tell Mother that. She'll think I'm eating all their food._

Little did he know, he was not the only one who had fallen in love with his grandparents’ cooking.

He was about to find out.

Once they started unpacking his belongings as soon as they arrived, he felt confident enough to send his grandparents to rest while he finished. He could make it on his own, he promised, and they smiled back at him, not knowing he was not a man of deft hands but cursed ones, maybe too big to handle things as delicately as he really wanted to.

Maybe he wasn’t mean to be careful, he often thought to himself.

Either way, knowing how both of his caretakers never seemed to stop from doing something, he was not surprised when he started to smell a scent that always tugged his tummy seductively, reminding him that maybe becoming a vegetarian was not the best decision for him to make if he wasn’t going to stay strong in spirit.

Namjoon salivated as he waited patiently for the food to be served. He helped and tried to look away from the plate that contained galbi, deliciously cooked, oozing juices that made him lick his lips, a halo of steam bordering them as if they were a thing made by gods.

He wasn’t religious, but he’d gladly accept blessings coming in food shape without hesitating.

Maybe he just was way too hungry.

He tried to hold back and had a simple cucumber soup he found too cold to his picky tongue, still tasty even though he begged to every god in heaven for it to taste like meat.

Namjoon finished it as he composed a small salad for himself, trying to full his stomach away, neglecting his cravings. Not only until he finished rearranging the vegetables on his plate and ate the first handful of it he noticed it everything and everyone around him had gone silent.

His grandpa spoke up first.

“We didn't expect you until ten! Come in, come in, we have plenty of food!”

Namjoon's eyes were not quick. They went from his grandpa’s mouth to his grandma’s eyes, rising with the rest of her body and making a beeline straight into their kitchen.

He chewed, too busy seeing how his grandma placed empty plates on the table, making space for another person, and then he looked up.

Their eyes locked and he opened his mouth a little bit.

“This is Namjoon,” his grandma introduced him, unable to speak and still eating his vegetables, careful not to choke on them. “Namjoon, this is Jin. He works with us Monday to Friday.”

Namjoon lost sight of his face for a second and then marveled at its reappearance once he finished bowing. He didn’t bow back. He wasn’t accustomed to doing it in England. He didn’t catch his name, either, just his shiny brown eyes and the dark color of his hair, the scent he radiated— like watered flowers in the morning—, and the way he ate up almost every piece of meat he had meant to devour if he weren’t a vegetarian.

Namjoon was baffled at the way that guy ate. He would never forget how natural he seemed to behave around his grandparents, nor how he got into his nerves when he saw him stepping into their kitchen nonchalantly, looking for a glass where he could pour some water.

They spoke about his trip, added a few details here and there about his nationality, the age he left South Korea with his mother and made sure to inform the newcomer he was a Virgo, just like them.

He didn't understand the importance of this until he nodded, excitedly, and said he'd get along with Namjoon just fine since he was a Sagittarius, a fire sign, and he was a Virgo, an earth sign, and those were often opposites that worked like a dynamo, just like—

Namjoon stopped listening. He got the message: they were so used to be just the three of them he kind of felt he was fourth wheeling in the whole conversation. That guy sure knew how to talk them through stuff they were interested in. He, on the contrary, wasn't. He was more comfortable being a listener, so he stepped back, resuming his salad, trying to understand why was astrology suddenly so important when he had always thought of it as unreliable affairs people often got tricked themselves in.

A part of him felt content, though, at the little fact that he said about their signs, rewriting it inside his head with hints of hope.

_We are compatible._

Even if at some point Namjoon thought it would be delightful to see him choking on the galbi their grandparents made for him and couldn’t eat because he didn’t eat meat— he swore at that moment his spirits would bend if he thought about it one more time—, he stole glances from him and turned away, embarrassed, whenever their eyes met.

He was gorgeous. Namjoon wasn’t blind.

He wasn’t confident, either, so he kept quiet until they all finished up their dishes, wondering if that guy— _what was his name?—_ would leave or stay for seconds.

“We…” his grandpa started talking after clearing his throat. At the same moment, his grandma also spoke.

“We had meant to phone you to tell you we were giving you the day off.”

Namjoon’s eyes caught the exact moment in which this guy’s eyes— _Jin, that’s his name, Jin_ — wore no shine whatsoever, only to be lightened up again after a split second.

“I see,” he mildly nodded. Namjoon noticed he closed his eyes as he did so and found his heart beating rapidly at this tender gesture. “Then I’ll head home, I suppose.”

“I suppose so too,” his grandpa teased. They both smiled at each other inside a complicity Namjoon both envied and liked. “Unless… we were planning to…”

“Maybe you could show Joonie around?” Namjoon’s grandma beat his husband to it, asking so fast they were trapped inside plans that looked almost like a—

_Don’t._

They locked eyes, then looked away.

“Maybe,” Jin teased, or at least tried to, but Namjoon didn’t move an inch. He shrugged. “Only if he wants to.”

“Oh, we will pay you,” Namjoon’s grandma offered. He looked at her with his mouth open, shook. “We’ll work slowly here, we promise.”

“Or maybe you could stop pretending I’m not here?” Namjoon said, prompting them all to laugh. He wanted to laugh, too, but seeing Jin shaking his head and closing his eyes while he smiled made him feel like the funniest man on earth.

Jin, still laughing at his whole expression, lifted both hands and directed a thankful gesture to them.

“No need to pay me, _halmeoni._ I’ll do it gladly.”

Namjoon’s eyes shoot up to his with no trace of goofiness left on his face. He had the same expression on his face, but this time he was serious. “She’s _my_ halmeoni.”

He could’ve said he was sorry. He could’ve dismissed their little attempt of bickering with a serious comment on how much he had grown to love his grandparents as his. He could’ve risen above his joke, not landing it and making him feel like a fool.

But he took a few steps towards Namjoon’s grandmother and hugged her tenderly, much to everyone’s surprise. She hugged him back and, looking at Namjoon dead in the eye, he whispered _“over my dead body”,_ leading them to a joke they’d use the whole summer, constantly bickering on how much love they had yet to show them, competing on small gestures like gardening, cleaning, or helping them faster, better, quicker, than the other.

It never crossed their mind that they’d compete too, without knowing, on who would fall for the other first.

They raced side by side walking on a thin line between enemies and lovers until they couldn’t help it anymore.

_His lips tasted like strawberries._

Namjoon’s lips, resting against his forearm, reach out to kiss the lips he remembers so well.

_Too bad strawberries’ best season only lasts during summer._

After that, it’s just memories.

His back will hurt like hell tomorrow, that’s for sure. It’s a good thing he has a mattress coming soon. Namjoon doesn’t worry, too tired to give a damn.

He falls asleep again.

Seokjin locks the door to Namjoon's bedroom. He lets his towel slip around his body as he sees the bed in front of him. He walks slowly towards it, hearing the insides of it complaining quietly as he lies down on it. He rests his head on Namjoon's pillow and turns it around when he smells the faint smell of drool.

He doesn't mind it. Oh, he doesn't.

He pulls the covers on top of him, curling up in a ball of limbs that hugs itself tightly.

His eyes are dry, painted red.

Seokjin closes them.

New bruises on his skin ache as he breathes in and out, drifting slowly inside his dream realm. He knows his chances are short, and still, he hopes bad dreams won't come tonight.

Maybe he left them in South Korea, he thinks, falling asleep as he sighs.

A phone rings once.

Seokjung lifts his head, not believing what he’s hearing. His hair is ruffled, half of his face has his cushion's pattern imprinted on it, and there are dry tears in a corner of his left eye.

He stops to listen carefully. Maybe he was dreami—

No. It's ringing alright. It's their phone. The sound is coming from downstairs, but why isn't his mother pick—

“Fuck.”

He gets up and runs downstairs, thinking the worst has happened. He expects to see her little body in a thousand ways possible. Maybe she’d given up. He expects to see a tragedy. Maybe it was too much for her. He even expects not to see her around—

_Maybe she's gone for a walk— oh God I hope she—_

He reaches the first floor and lunges into the living room, not minding the fact that he has no t-shirt on and only a pair of pajama pants.

“Ma?” Seokjung calls out, not seeing her at her usual spot.

The phone is still ringing and it’s making him so damn nervous he's a hairsbreadth away from disconnecting the stupid thing, once and for all.

His hand reaches the phone, hoping it’ll be his brother.

A voice comes up from the kitchen, startling him.

“Don’t answer.” Seokjung turns around.

He never thought he’d see her as a building made of wood and stones in the middle of an earthquake that shook her entire body, the epicenter being her own heart. He never thought he’d seen her crash onto the floor, sobbing, repeating two words he swears he has never heard her say.

“Don’t answer, Seokjung.”

He never thought he’d seen his mother so alive and yet so dead-like at the same time, and yet here they are.

“It’s him.”

There must be something on his face, Seokjung thinks maybe he's too stupid to understand, but he's got it. He knows who she's referring to. He just doesn't want to hear it.

No, he refuses.

“It's Jongin,” she cries, her hands clutched into two tiny fists he wants to hold so bad, but she won't let her. “It's that son of a bitch, Seokjung. He said—”

“Stop, Ma.”

“He said terrible things, Seokjung,” she looks at him, his eyes two rivers, her whole face red with pure anger. “He said—”

“I don't want to know, Ma,” he cuts her off, holding her tight.

He will crumble. He will crumble if he hears it.

“He said—” his mother starts, holding him tight. “He said he'll find him and—”

Seokjung holds his breath.

_Here it comes._

“He's going to kill him.”

His lungs release a cry he's been repressing for  
 _(seven years)_ _  
_ a long time. He cries out his denial, screams his anger, sobs his misery. He breaks inside of her mother’s grip, trying to glue his pieces, to cure some of his pain, his frustration; trying to console him as he’s done with her throughout all these years.

He’s weakened to a point where crying like a child and cursing at the gods up above for the luck his brother’s got in this life are the only things he finds relief in.

And it’s so little he barely feels it. The hope he had, slipping through his fingers; the faith he had on luck, on destiny…

_It’s gone._

“He’s going to kill my little boy.”

_It’s all gone._

They look at each other and stare long enough to each other's messy face. Their eyes say it all, not needing their mouths to voice their worst fear.

_And there's nothing we can do about it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think? There's a comment box if you feel like using it. Go ahead!
> 
> Don't forget: kudos and comments keep authors active~.
> 
> Ramblings between updates @ [TWT](https://twitter.com/shampoofaeries)


	4. Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m not saying she’s being the biggest bitch on earth,” she resumes her train of thought, tapping the ‘Send’ arrow, looking away from the device. “But she’s being the biggest, fattest, most annoying bitch on earth right now.”
> 
> Jackson lights another cigarette and says nothing, he just sees her secure his phone against her belly, between the skirt’s strap and her skin, and takes a drag.
> 
> Raphaella scrunches her nose, walking away from him, getting near to the walls inside the house’s garden. She’s careful not to step on the lilies, the peonies, the roses.
> 
> When she’s far enough, she takes a leap of faith.
> 
> “You know we’re going to talk about it sometime soon, right?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added some tags, characters, and ships; took away some others (they weren't that relevant or gave TMI that not really mattered), so if you could read them, I'd be super happy.
> 
> I'm still to add some characters that I'm planning to introduce, but that'll come later. 
> 
> Thank you for your patience.
> 
> LET'S GET IT.

_The day I had you  
And the abrupt night too  
  
I— I call it love  
  
To me, it’s all love_

**CHUNG HA:** Call It Love

Cold wind hit his skin, waking him up.

He was not even fully conscious when he realized his hands were already moving, trying to find and reach whatever comfort he could get from the night.

Jackson’s hands found and took hold of someone’s back. He was swift to slide his body across the mattress and against the other, his desire of warming up building stronger and stronger by every second he spent shivering.

“What’s wrong?”

The man’s voice traveled through his ears, beelining through every sense he owned, reaching a heartstring that ripped his chest in half with desire. It was low, almost a growl, just for him to hear; he dismissed arousal immediately, nonetheless, for his body was on a mission: it demanded to find the warmth needed in order to fall asleep again.

“I’m c-cold.”

“C’mere.”

The body lying beside him turned around and offered his chest, his arms, his scent.

Jackson found refuge there, swearing to himself he’d stay there all night if needed although he was never much of a little spoon, but a big one; always defending his place on a relationship, even if it were a matter so dumb such as stealing the covers at night, as soon as the heat between the two of them became unbearable, half-dozing off and half-waking himself up primarily by his guts, he turned the whole thing around: his limbs trapped the other man’s body just as he knew he liked it, taking all the air away from him by smothering him with raw, urgent kisses, never minding their morning breaths nor the fazed-by-sleep consciousness they both slumbered in, skin so sensitive, senses so excited, they didn’t take long to find each other’s release.

Before falling asleep, they both had wished for that cold to stay forever, giving them a reason to wake up in the middle of the night just to make love the only way they knew how.

Not looking at each other’s wounds.

Not looking at each other’s secrets.

Not looking.

Just feeling.

  
  
  


Jackson had never seen Brighton the way he sees it now.

The fast pumps of blood inside his neck tell him he’s close to reaching a state of euphoria he usually meets when he’s exercising, in trouble, or having sex. Or even better: the three of them at the same time.

But this… this just feels like it’s _ too much. _

Jackson wishes he had a lighter on him. But he considers it’s best not to smoke right now. Not when he’s about to lose it due to his nervousness, his panic, his nerve-wracking and constant fear of colliding into a parked car or a lamp post.

He takes a moment to breathe in and out as deep as he can when he stops at a red light. He opens the windows, letting the cold breeze of November stroll inside the vehicle, not minding the possibility of catching a cold.

His heart rate doesn’t slow down, though. He lets go of the steering wheel and sees little stains of sweat on it, mapped out by the curves and lines of his palms.

The third time he sighs is the same moment in which the green light urges him to keep going, so he does, wind ruffling his hair, caressing his temples, his lips.

He’s never driven before. The vehicle’s tires roll on the pavement so smoothly, Jackson feels every bump and turn with an awareness he’s never felt before. The engine’s growl, the brakes he hits every time he misses a bad patch of road with a tire, the steering wheel and all the possibilities of direction it offers— it all becomes an extension of his body for him to move freely through the streets of the city that once witnessed his coming of age.

A city he never looked back at, too busy to take a break.

There was always something more important to do than to learn how the city he lived in was composed: he always had time on his back, snapping its fingers at him and biting his neck and ears with stress, he’d have to pull scripts and pens out of the two messenger bags he always carried with him on his way to the Academy.

Those were his junior years, basically. Running inside the Academy with cups of coffee burning the insides of his hands, swimming through towers and towers of paper sheets that contained too many typos, literary resources nobody used anymore, red and blue ink, and most importantly: names that were never his’.

He never drove by himself to all the places he visited in his youth— and there were many since he started as an errand boy, became known to everybody as the junior writer (a  _ promising _ golden boy), and ended as the first go-to ghostwriter inside the Academy—; he never had the necessity of learning a map of the city by memory, locating hotspots of convenience, drawing the fastest route— he never cared, not until—

_ Until/////// _

Until two months ago.

Jackson swallows what he thinks it’s a rock inside his throat. It falls into his stomach and he even  _ hears _ the sound of how it sinks deep into his bile.

Jackson always had something going on. He always had a plan (or several ones), and if he wasn’t executing them, he was going through their flaws and benefits thoroughly, going from A to Z scenarios if necessary, so his means would always succeed.

_ ///////until/////// _

Two months ago he secretly requested his chauffeur to teach him how to move around the city just before dismissing him by telling him not to come back ever again, giving him six months of payment in advance and a compensation bonus of three more months, knowing he had a wife to take care of with a newborn child he never got to meet because—

He didn’t need to explain; his chauffeur understood quite clearly, asked no questions, and left.

Jackson had wished his chauffeur would ask him. He would’ve explained.

These express driving classes were part of an unexpected plan yet a necessary one; Jackson tried desperately to find a way out of the hellish madness at home whenever his mind went through last year event’s— not to say last week’s—, going over and over, and over and over, by everything he could’ve done differently not to have reached this… state? An even worse one than the miserable one he never truly realized he was trapped in until he met  _ him. _

A state he ultimately ignored. A state that became a routine in which he’d find himself roaming inside his house, a cage made of gold and luxury he despised with the most acid bile in his guts, not showering, not listening, not talking, just weeping like an old widower gone crazy by a way of living he built to the very core.

_ And I don’t want/////// _

_ I don’t want that voice/////// _

_ That /////// voice/////// _

“Fuck.”

He’s going in circles. His eyes keep missing the street names from a district he’s acquaintanced with. He should recognize his friend’s house but he’s distracted, not to mention way too nervous of getting caught without his driver’s license, the one he’s refrained from getting, too convinced he’ll fail miserably— and he’s not ready oh no Lord he’s not ready for another failure— for he’s still yet to figure out every technical thing of driving, since the theoretical part is of no use to him whatsoever, and the things he’s to learn will only be acquired by driving… which makes absolutely no fucking sense.

Jackson turns on the vehicle’s blinkers but he doesn’t slow down. It’s a few minutes past noon already, Jackson reads on the clock by the dashboard. He notices he’s in need of fuel, too, but dismisses it as soon as his eyes meet the road again. Doing it now would mean no detour when he returns home, arriving way too early.

_ And then I will go back to/////// _

_ ///////damn/////// _

He convinces himself he has no time to load the car. He tells himself Raphaella is probably fuming by his lateness, mad at his habit of always arriving minutes after the hour he promises, but he’s relieved to know by heart that she’ll forgive him.

She always does.

_ If only all the women in the world were like Raphaella, _ he thinks, and smiles instantly after that, chuckling faintly.  _ Oh, what a nightmare that would b/////// _

As the Wang family vehicle drifts through streets he barely recognizes, he thinks it’s time to call Raphaella and tell her to come and seek him up, stepping outside his comfort zone where his ego reigns and retorts he’s not lost, just a bit confused by too many street names and numbers.

His eyes miss completely the name of the street he’s driving along, pissing him off more and more each time he’s not able to guess where the sign will be showing, hanging, or posted.

A lightning-like thought zaps his conscience without warning, causing his right leg to hit the brakes.

He wonders if there’s a street among this concrete maze bearing his father’s name.

Much to his disgust, he knows the answer to that question by memory.

Jackson leans to the window on his side and spits.

Hoping it’s this one, he accelerates and turns off the blinkers.

  
  
  


Ironically, Brighton is brighter, more vibrant than he thought it’d be despite the looming and menacing clouds every Englishmen and women knows; with enough people walking its streets and giving them life, going places, having important stuff to do; carrying handbags, briefcases, gym bags; wearing long coats, silk or wool scarves, long boots for people with woke fashion senses, and sober oxfords for office workers; generating a low murmur of tinkling keyrings and spare change inside their pockets, crashing against lint and forgotten candy they’ll eat with no much thought, probably after lunchtime…

Jackson hates it. He hates every piece of it, every bit of every person walking around him; he loathes this normality, this rhythm of a city he’s a total stranger to, a rhythm that fuels his desire with a word he’s never given to so much thought until now.

“Does this car belong to you?”

He turns to see a full set of white teeth, framed by two lips he lingers his sight on.

“Yeah,” he breathes, instinctively placing his hands inside his jeans’ pockets.

They smile even more brightly at him. “You’re a lucky guy.”

He differs, but he’s far from wanting to get into that matter with a total stranger wearing a hoodie of Brighton College.

Jackson closes his eyes and walks up the front stairs of the house where his friend lives, but he stops.

_ ///////ighton Coll/////// _

His sight follows the person wearing the hoodie, already crossing the street to the opposite of the one he’s standing on. The shorts match with the hoodie’s colors, dark blue with golden stripes that shine under the light they’re on.

Jackson doesn’t care about colors if he’s to be honest.

He wonders if they know Namjoon.

If they’ve seen his eyes up close lately, the way he scrunches them when he’s confused or happy, the way they open up a little bit more when he’s tired, as if he had pulled an all-nighter the day before.

_ I hope he’s resting/////// _

He wonders if they know him, so they could tell him if he’s still wearing his hair of a different hue from the one he’s naturally born with.

_ ///////said he wouldn’t keep it he was just/////// _

If they’re his students in one of his classes. If he’s still working with the texts they were reading when they were still together.

_ ///////was the name of the last /////// we read togeth/////// _

He feels an urge to yell at them from across the street and ask them if they know his name, just that, or if they know if he’s still teaching the same classes

_ ///////lit one and two c. w. linguistics one and two/////// _

or if the color of the messenger bag he carries around is the one corresponding to the one he gifted him last Christmas.

_ ///////said he loved it/////// _

He’d like to know…

Jackson turns to Raphaella’s door opening in half, a round face greeting him with questioning brows. “Can I help you, young lad?”

He’d like to know if someone can.

“Is Raphaella at home? I’m…”

“Sir Wang, I’m sorry,” she opens up the door completely and steps aside. “Please come in. I didn’t expect for you to come in before your chauffeur.”

He steps inside the house, hoping to hear her steps and the door closing, but it doesn’t.

“Don’t wait for him,” he orders instinctively, biting his tongue afterwards.

_ What a piece of shi/////// _

“Oh?”

“It’s just me, Lucretia,” he explains. Jackson offers a hand gesture and she smiles, although a bit puzzled. “It’ll be just me from now on.”

“I see,” she bows, and he wishes she wouldn’t. “Would you like something, sir Wang?”

“Maybe…” but he stops ordering her around. This is not his house _.  _ “No. Thank you. I’ll just wait for Raphaella.”

Lucretia bows again and leaves.

The knot in Jackson’s throat, now extending to his chest and mouth, doesn’t.

  
  
  


Jackson tilts up his chin and wonders how long it would take for him to count every inch from where he’s standing to the last corner of the ceiling above him. He draws an imaginary line between him and every single thing that surrounds him. He measures things in metrics that only exist inside the walls of his mind.

This has become a habit of his. He measures things close and far away from him just to see how long or how much effort would it take for him to reach them. It’s a game of only guessing, never verifying, that keeps his mind grounded and amused (most of the times), not to say distracted— which happens often, much to his co-authors’ annoyance, getting him into trouble and messed up jobs he would have finished without a problem if he weren’t too messed up by personal stuff, needing a way out of reality and time.

He measures. And measures. And measures.

He guesses he’s three minutes away from Raphaella, currently changing her lazy stay-at-home flower vase wife outfit into something more suitable for a visit; she’s a lightning bolt when it comes to switching outfits and she always manages to look terrific, so it shouldn’t take long for her to come down the staircase to offer him some coffee.

Jackson calculates their distance and hops on the next thing.

He’s approximately 10.22 miles, a 23-lengthened-into-40 minutes long car ride, and much, much less than 25,000 steps away from his house, a place he gets out at the hint of a social event someone mentions or offers, be it an impromptu job, a client meetup, or a gossip session with his favorite woman on earth.

_ ///////cruel distance cruel/////// _

His throat hurts by the angle he’s holding his head in— or so he wants to believe—, thinking endlessly about distances he’ll never work up the courage to verify, but he doesn’t care.

He pictures it’d take five— maybe six Jacksons to reach the ceiling and touch the chandelier hanging right above his head. It’s not lit, and it won’t be for the next six hours, he guesses, feeling cold. It’s coming from the windows, moving silk curtains so transparent that they wouldn’t be missed at all if they weren’t there.

A smirk crosses his mouth.

_ Aren’t we rich people a/////// _

Jackson hears Raphaella’s steps on the hardwood floor. She must be just about ready. For every step he hears coming from the staircase, he guesses the numbers and length that divides him from his friend are getting smaller.

She appears through the corridor and floats— at least that’s how she looks, with her loose skirt waving seductively around her ankles— to him. She hugs him by the neck, kissing both of his cheeks, and he lifts her up in a tight embrace.

Her skirt waves a bit more, this time revealing a glimpse of her legs’ skin; then it covers them all with the awful halt of the continuum they’ve created, broken when they stop to say how much they’ve missed each other.

It’s not like they haven’t met in forever. It’s just that they both know many things have happened already and they’re behind, way behind, of everything they need to tell each other.

“Tea?” she offers. Jackson frowns. “Coffee.”

He smiles, about to tell her how he likes it, but she—

“French press, no milk, two sugars,” she lists, floating inside her kitchen, disappearing from Jackson’s sight.

He nods to himself and starts to collect whatever information he has inside his mind to start their usual gossip session. He recalls his week and searches hour by hour for Academy gossip, juicy neighbors’ shenanigans, family feuds he could ramble for hours, finding

_ ///////nothing/////// _

except for the last questions that threatened to break him down while he waited for the door to be answered, cut abruptly by Lucretia, who greeted him and conducted his mindless body through halls and corridors he knows so well.

His chest follows a memory oh, so close, hollowing itself as if it were inhaling sharply just to show him how much thirst and hunger it’s capable of suffering before giving up completely.

It burns. His soul is starved, shredded, in pain. The fact that he won’t get to know the answers to those questions lights a fire in his loins that could reduce him to ashes if he dared to leave it unattended. His body, on the other hand, is willing to stand two or three more fights before claiming total and fatal surrender.

So he’s torn.

_ ///////////////////// _

Jackson tries to recall whatever he’s counted up ‘till now to separate his body from his mind. He focuses hard on Raphaella’s steps, now dancing against the kitchen’s linoleum: 286; he counts the golden frames around photographies that— he guesses— are family heirlooms: 67; he spots flowers on the salon’s tables and corners, flowers he doesn’t know nor care about but flowers that he counts, nonetheless, but he loses his count when he realizes he’s no longer thinking but feeling and remembering—

_ Nothing, just/////// _

All he can

_ ///////feel, not think/////// _

of is  _ that _ night.

_ ///////The night we/////// _

_ ///////////////////// _

  
  
  


He had deft hands. He still has. But that night, he was quick as ever.

His fingers trailed the belt that held Namjoon’s slacks around his waist as he licked his lips. Their eyes spoke their vow of consent to each other, managing to request from one another a confirmation that the level of drunkenness in their bloodstreams was low enough to guarantee them they’d remember everything the next day.

Namjoon’s cardigan fell from his shoulders and pooled around his oxfords, forming a crescent moon they’d step on many times that night, ruining it hopelessly.

They didn’t care.

_ I didn’t care. _

Jackson remembers the smell of their sweat and his cologne, mixed with the floral scent of Namjoon’s perfume, and how his lips tasted like a cocktail he’d have learned to love if he didn’t think cocktails were for women and men who couldn’t stand proper drinks like a dry whiskey on the rocks— his favorite indulgence that worked as his own wingman and succeeded every time—, waking a thirst on his belly, throat and mouth he didn’t know he was capable of feeling.

So he kissed him. He licked his bottom lip and chewed it carefully, acknowledging this was something he liked  _ a whole lot _ by the noises he began to let out inside his mouth. He untucked the t-shirt inside his slacks, already falling down his rear, trapped by the middle of his bum against the wall, and Jackson remembers so well he even pinpointed a question he’d ask later regarding the fabric of it, too smooth to be a simple t-shirt.

_ It wasn’t a t-shirt. It was a blouse. _

“I don’t—” Namjoon mouthed, lips trapped by a mouth that followed his with hunger. He tried to make a point but Jackson didn’t want to hear it. Not when he was drinking from a newly discovered fountain of pleasure he didn’t know he needed. “Usually—”

More kisses, soft kisses against the corners of his mouth, kisses with teeth that bit whomever’s tongue they caught; kisses that ended abruptly to allow their lungs to breathe.

Jackson always made sure his partners felt comfortable with him, with themselves, and with the space they were on. There were times they would get down to business while at the streets, on a friend’s house, on a restroom or, in this case, the dusty wardrobe room of his best friend, so he always left pauses in-between of all the touching and the kissing and the licking and the  _ oh Lord, _ the biting, to cue the other for complaints, praises, dirty talk, whatever they had in mind.

Namjoon remained silent, though, setting him on fire when he discovered he was finding enough space inside the small spot they’d stolen to kneel down in front of him.

Jackson’s back aligned with the wall, feeling Namjoon’s heavy hands around his waist, trying to find the zipper and button that held his jeans in place. They stopped when Jackson caressed his cheek with his thumb, flushing it with a color he knew was red —translated to yellow by the bad light they were under—, giving him some more time to reflect on what he was about to do.

Namjoon’s eyes said it all, except Jackson hadn’t learned how to read them, not yet.

“I’ve never done this,” Namjoon spat, looking feverishly at him. His hand rested against Jackson’s thighs, keeping him on a line he wouldn’t dare cross except by his heavy breathing.

Jackson felt an eyebrow arching up, gesticulating quickly not to show him how surprised he was at this, erasing any judgemental hint on his face, although deep inside this both confused him and turned him on, he wasn’t gonna lie.

His tongue, though, was too drunk to care about social etiquette.

“You’ve never given a blowjob?”

“Not that,” Namjoon hurried to say, a bit pissed by his straightforwardness. “This.”

His long fingers— Jackson had a thing for hands, alright, and had already noticed the delicate, silver jewelry Namjoon wore on his wrists and fingers— squeezed his thighs, then dropped to his knees, then trailed up to his thighs again, caressing his crotch.

“What do you mean by  _ this?” _

He hesitated. His hands were lifted from Jackson’s jeans, losing all confidence they had just a moment ago. Jackson damned himself and his tongue, immediately craving his touch.

“Uh… people call it a hookup?”

Jackson didn’t mean to laugh. He didn’t mean to make any of his aspirants to a one-night-stand with him to feel awkward, less of a man, scared, nor judged at all. He had manners, for god’s sake, but this time he couldn’t help it.

He snorted and opened his mouth to let out a high-pitched laugh that resonated inside the walls of the small wardrobe they were hiding in.

“People?” he repeated, looking at him. The corners of Namjoon’s mouth were already curving downwards, an imminent frown looming on his brow, but he didn’t let him answer.

_ Damn, I was such an asshole that night. _

“What  _ people?” _ Jackson asked.

He stood there in front of him and he stayed on his knees, with their pre-sex hair casting weird shadows on the walls and under the small lightbulb, their clothes wrinkled, some of them pooling around their feet, waiting to be picked up or stepped on.

“You know…,” Namjoon shrugged. “People. People who hookup. They call it hookups?”

Jackson didn’t even bother to hold back the bubbly laugh that cascaded through his mouth, parting his lips on a smile so tender he instantly tried to cover his face with his hands, too endeared by the way he tried to explain something he didn’t fully understand. But his body contradicted itself halfway, not wanting to cover the sight of him with his hands, resolving it’d only place his fingers to his forehead in a gesture of amusement.

_ I didn’t want to stop seeing you that night. _

“You’re a thing alright,” Jackson mumbled, still laughing. He tried to turn around, but the space was very limited. “I believe you. You’ve never done this.”

Namjoon scoffed. “No shit, Sherlock. I just told you.”

Jackson smiled, nonetheless, and prompted him to stand up. “Let’s get out of here, hm?”

He looked into his eyes, expressionless, and even offered a hand, for god’s sake, but Namjoon did nothing but speak.

“You must think I’m a fool.”

_ It wasn’t anger. _

“You must think I’m stupid.”

Jackson froze. “No, I’d never…”

“C’mon,” he countered, hands on his thighs, looking deftly for the zipper. “Let’s do it. I wanna do it. Don’t you want it too?”

“Namjoon—”

Jackson’s jeans were stripped from his legs and only then Namjoon stopped, looking at his boxers, his cock peeking out from it by its sudden release, its hardness already wearing off.

Namjoon licked his lips and gave him one last look. “Unless you want to leave.”

_ It was fear. _

“I don’t want to leave.”

_ Fear of not being desirable enough. _

_ Fear of not being worthy of a one-night-stand for someone. _

_ Fear of not being likable by a person you’d started to like so much so soon. _

“But I don’t want you to feel pressured to do something you’re not comfortable with.”

_ And you were grateful. _

Jackson offered his hand again and Namjoon took it, not needing it but  _ wanting _ it.

He, too, craved to touch him.

Namjoon sighed. He dropped his hands to his sides, letting go of his clammy hand, lowering his gaze to meet Jackson’s jeans, halfway down. He chuckled.

“You…” the words lingered on his lips, a smirk too shy to unfold itself, a sudden blush reappearing on his cheeks. “You are a  _ thing _ too, I guess.”

“Wh—”

Namjoon’s eyes met his.

Jackson would’ve gone far, very far, and he would’ve done many things just to have this kind of opportunity where he could snap back with snarky comebacks at the guy he was messing with. That was the way he flirted, and he knew nothing more. It worked perfectly every time. It was an easy thing to do, for he was a playful imp most of the time, and it was way too easy with Namjoon, always leading him to improper retorts and banter they’d jump into right away two hours after they’d just met.

It’d have been so easy.

But those eyes.

_ Doe eyes, lovely eyes bathed by innocent stars that shone so low, as if dying, lending them their last rays of light. _

“Nothing,  _ love.  _ Shall we go?”

Namjoon smiled and nodded, dimples digging deep into his cheeks

  
  
  


_ ///////and I knew I’d love you with such force I’d end up in shambles, fading out as if I were giving you my own light on each breath I devoted to you/////// _

  
  
  


so it stuck.

The pet name, the caring, the unspoken consent and long pauses between their loving sessions; the late-at-night talks about their writing projects, their first disputes about everything and nothing in particular, their attempt on living together; more pet names, walks on the park with Namjoon’s dog against Jackson’s preference of staying at his place instead; the soft kisses, the kisses that bit, the kisses that welcomed moans and dirty talk; the hint of a relationship they meant to build until there was not enough sky to scratch nor land to sow.

_ ///////I didn’t mind I knew I was gonna hurt anyways but/////// _

It all stuck to them like gum with no lint.

Secrets too, until  
_ ///////he’d say/////// _  
they were too   
_ ///////he’d say my lies were too/////// _

big to hide.

  
  
  


_ ///////but love i didn’t i did not lie not to you/////// _

  
  
  


Raphaella walks carefully to the salon, carrying a silver plate where the french press balances on its own as if gravity were a fucking joke to it. Her eyes stick to the cups, the small jar of sugar and her two bags of cinnamon tea, everything resting on a small strawberry pattern tablecloth.

“Coffee is ready,” she sings, lifting his sight to the sofa, where Jackson is sitting. “Jackson?”

His sight, lost somewhere along the family portraits, trails back to her with an amount of effort that sends a chill through her spine. His bloodshot eyes stare back at her with such misery, the only thing she can do is place the silver tray on the nearest table, knocking a flower vase she pays no attention to.

“Yeah?”

It’s just a breath, really. He exhales the word rather than voicing it out, and that’s all she needs to approach him. The exposed skin of her feet steps on the marble floor, hurrying to reach him. She tries to take his hands away from his thighs with no use, already sitting by his side, knowing this is one of those episodes he’s had in the last five months.

“Jackson, talk to me.”

He unlocks his gaze from hers and looks down.

“Ella…” Tears fall from his eyes. His lips mumble a phrase over and over again, drinking salty tears that sneak inside them, soon covered with snot and spit she doesn’t mind at all. “I c-can’t d-do it a-anymore, Ell.”

The last vocal on his mouth becomes a whimper. She hugs his body, too big against hers, too slim and athletic yet way too weak to hold him the way he needs to be held.

The way he  _ wants _ to be held.

“It’s okay”

“I g-give up, El-lla.”

Raphaella closes her eyes.

“It’s okay, honey. I got you.”

Jackson inhales hectically. His hands grip her left arm with so much force she actually lets out a whimper. “Y-you do?”

A shiver runs her spine once again just to hear his broken voice.

Staying very still, Raphaella doesn’t let go of him.

“I do, my dear. I do and I always will.”

  
  
  


_ Existence speaks loudly sometimes. It calls us out outside of our day’s mechanisms and routines, and screams at our faces with a thundering voice, claiming back our attention:  _ **_I AM HERE._ **

It was his first year as a professor at Brighton College when he found those words on a paper he was grading. He was taken aback by the phrasing, the nerve the student must’ve had to start their paper with such a strong lead, and the fact that these words were coming from a freshman’s, keeping him from advancing on his grading task, dragging him back once he stopped reading them, then again, and again, forcing him to retrace them, finding a new meaning every time that, in the end, he had to keep the first page to himself, telling the student that his dog had eaten it.

There wasn’t a day where Namjoon ever forgot to pay two or three minutes of his time to it; reading it once or twice, sometimes not even needing to see it— just knowing it’s hung onto his Tea & Poetry room’s wall and reciting the words by heart—, that’s all it takes for it to soothe his soul, helping him heal one day at a time.

It’s not a ritual for him, although what he does is the proper definition of it, he just knows it’s helped on days where he’s feeling like he needs that extra strength for the day.

Today, though, he misses it completely.

The coffee pot drops the last string of liquid coffee into the little crystal jar, announcing it’s done with a beep. Namjoon finishes his portion of pieces of toast he prepared on a rush and gulps what’s left of his oatmeal. He places the used dishes on the sink and reminds himself to clean when he returns from Hoseok’s.

The keys on his jeans’ pocket tinkle as he moves and double checks the material he’s to bring into one of his classes.

_ Ling One and Creative, got it. _

Namjoon makes sure he’s got his library card inside his wallet as the last step of his daily routine. Now he’s good to go.

The tinkling in his pocket and the beeping stop.

He looks at the stairs, then looks at the clock above his fridge.

It’s not too late for his class, but it’ll soon be if he doesn’t leave right away.

He does nothing, though, but to stare at the pieces of toast on the counter, stacked in a solid tower carefully covered with a napkin. The jam jar, half-full, has a knife on top of its lid that points directly at the fridge, where he’s left the butter.

_ Jin’s still sleeping, so I can’t tell him I’m leaving. _

His eyes fall into the small dining table he slept on. As far as he knows, Jin didn’t come down after his shower. But he could be wrong.

If only he could check up on him…  _ without bothering him, of course. He’s an adult. He probably jetlagged himself into oblivion and went back to sleep as soon as he finished his night sleep. If he decides to sleep late, it’s on him. _

But if Namjoon could only tell him to use his place as his own, to go wild with the fridge and his groceries, to take every personal hygiene supplies he needs from the stash he keeps on the cabinet under the sink of his bathroom; and if only he could tell him not to worry about Monie, not even if he tries to get some time outside by barking and howling like a wild wolf— something he should NOT by any means allow for he’d destroy the rest of his rose bushes—

Namjoon has no word on any of this. He’s running late and he has no power whatsoever on any of the things Jin wants to do or thinks of doing. He’s just visiting, after all, and he’ll talk about whatever he’s going through whenever he feels like doing so. The last thing he’d like to do is pestering him with worry, acting just like his own mother would.

A shiver runs down his spine, opening his eyes widely.

_ FUCK. _

Namjoon fishes a post-it out of his messenger bag and scribbles a quick sentence, drawing a funny face at the end of it. He sticks it to a mug near the coffee pot and smiles.

_ That’ll do. _

He hurries to get the rest of his stuff with him, almost jogging to his truck, jumping into it and turning the engine on as he calls his mother, hoping to every deity they’ve seen on Greek myths that she’s not as pissed as she always gets when he forgets to call her.

The call gets through.

“Mother Dearest!” Namjoon smiles widely, yelling at the phone on the passenger’s seat. “I’m so sorry, Monie—”

“Don’t blame this on him, Kim Namjoon!” she scolds, although playfully. Her voice, on speaker, makes her sound a little robotic. “He’s just a puppy. Just admit you forgot to call me, as you always do.”

Namjoon lets out a laugh interfered by his teeth.

“He’s a grown-ass dog, Mother,” he shakes his head. “Don’t baby him.”

“Not listening, suddenly gone deaf,” she plays along, making him smile. “I’m guessing you forgot and we’ll just leave it at that for the time being, hm? You’re on your way to work?”

“You know it.”

“Got me on speaker?”

“Yeah.”

“Seatbelt on, eye contacts on?”

“Seatbelt aye, contacts nay.”

“You lost them again.”

“I’m your son, after all.”

“What’s  _ that _ supposed to mean?”

He doesn’t answer, knowing better, but also taking precautions not to get too distracted from the road. It only takes him twenty minutes to arrive at this hour in the morning, so he guesses he won’t talk to his mother about anything serious until he arrives. This is just another casual call; he’ll save for later the fact that his old summer love is currently staying at his place, the thrilling, tangled and never-ending persistence of Jackson’s texts— now cutting her voice as they reach Namjoon’s notification center—, and the huge workload that approaches him like an avalanche baptized with the name of ‘midterms’.

“That I love you more than anything in this world, dear Mother,” he chants, badly, and she cuts him off saying she already knows, he doesn’t need to sing it out loud with that out of tune voice of his.

“Stick to the poetry, kid; singing is not your thing,” she mocks tenderly.

“But mother,” he retorts, faking offense. “Poetry  _ is _ music.”

“Tell that to some Greeks and you’ll see Troy in flames once again.”

He smiles. “I know better, Mother.”

_ Of course I know better. _

  
  
  


Namjoon thinks Brighton College’s Library is one of his favorite places on earth because it’s wholly depicted by those words he once learned without warning, vibrating alongside his brain’s frequency, melting with it altogether.

_ I am here. _

The atmosphere of it wakes him up and, ironically, it makes him open his eyes the way he does when he’s falling asleep. The smell of wood and paper welcomes him every time, feeling hyper-aware of himself as if he were high—  _ minus the clumsy part that always gets the best of him even when he’s not under the influence of weed _ his eyes blink before settling to the library’s light, feeling the silence around him sinking into his skin and senses.

Namjoon smiles at the well-known faces that make everything around here work around the clock. It’s known he’s a regular. He doesn’t need to show his library card, he just has to stand as tall as he is in front of a student behind the main desk, smile and tell them where he’ll be if a student or a teacher comes looking for him.

But they already know. When he’s not looking up something out of curiosity, he’s waiting for his next class to start, moving around the shelves, picking up a random book he’ll leave on the cart once he’s finished. When he’s busy, though, he sets himself and his belongings on the farthest table of the study salon, where students actually respect his spot, making him space when they see him arriving, hands and arms full of reference books.

His mother’s voice fills his mind as he takes his usual spot at the table, piling up the books he’s carrying on his arms and bag. The ones that belong to the library have a blue tag on their spine, while his books have multi-colored post-its coming out of their pages, like tongues that’d love to taste the world.

He looks around.

His mother would definitely love this place. She’d marvel at the different kinds of wood some furniture is made of. She’d spent hours and hours— just like him— wandering around the rows of bookcases. She’d pick up a book from every section she’d find herself amused with, just like him, except she’d bring new books with her, books she hasn’t read, unlike him.

_ You’ll bend your back one of these days and that’ll be it,  _ she scolds him every time.  _ I once had a literature teacher who was admitted to an ICU because his spine gave up completely, bending backwards his torso by the weight he’d put on it year upon year. He had to remain bedridden for two years, recovering with therapists and all, only because he was stubborn enough not to leave behind all the books he’d already read. _

Namjoon draws a little smile from that.

If that’s going to be his fate, then so be it. He’d gladly admit himself to an ICU if that could promise him a better bed, tons of readings provided by his coworkers or his mother, catching up with some grading he always had to do  _ (papers are infinite; _ he’d always tell himself he’d lay down with those, but he never did, for he loved to read their students’ sayings and thoughts).

He stopped to organize the piles of books in front of him by priority as his mind drifted away, carried by his mother’s word of advice that always rang up every red flag that encloses his superego.

Namjoon wonders where that teacher would be now and if he’d recovered completely, curious enough to imagine himself meeting him someday, asking him about his injuries, how he handled it and if it was worth it.

It was poetic to him. As if the weight of every book he’s stubborn enough not to let go carried an extra amount of heaviness that he can only pinpoint as nostalgia.

  
  
  


Jeon Yoonha thinks it’s melancholy.

She’s seen this behavior before. She’s tried hard not to observe her children, she’s really tried, but his clinical eye never rests, and she’s a mother, for crying out loud, how can she miss it?

She was not blind to see her first child was gifted with words. With their meaning, their impact and power, their different colours and the shades they could cast or the lights they could provide people by just speaking them. He talked so quickly and spoke wonders every day without stopping, it was of no surprise to see his little nose buried-deep inside the pages of a book as soon as he learned how to read. The glasses came after, then his second pair, his third, his fourth…

He was not gifted with hands. She supposed he’d grow into his own measurements, his physical growth, and mental dimension, but he never did. He was clumsy enough to break, bump and toss stuff left and right, it became a habit to see little bruises on his knees, little cuts on his fingers, hands or lips, to whose she’ll just sigh and call out so he could approach her and start healing.

Some days she’d find herself content with the fact that he’d always need her to heal his wounds. He’d always come running to her, his chubby legs wobbling (when he was still a kid) or his waddling long arms (when he’d grown up taller than her), asking for bandaids, a kiss, a hug, or a word of advice. And she always complied.

She’d sworn to every god in heaven— the day she delivered him by herself, sweating and panting by the pain she’d been through— she’d always take care of him, no matter what.

She’d sworn the Greatest Goddess, mother of all women, she’d always look after her little Joon.

But as it always happens with children— and she should’ve known better—, Joon had a weakness.

“Melancholy,” she sighs as soon as she cuts their call, walking towards her garden. She sees a man elbow-deep into some bushes and smiles. “That bitter bitch.”

Jeon Yoonha leans over the kitchen counter to reach a pack of cigarettes and slides the door open loudly enough to see the man turning back to her.

“You have a lighter?”

“Sure. Back pocket.”

She grabs an ashtray from their garden table and sits a few spots away from the man fixing her tulip bed. “Could you toss it?”

He chuckles. “Lazy babe.”

She shrugs, catching it, and she’s thankful to realize there’s no more conversation nor sound between them, just the sound of garden scissors, dirt being moved around, and little grunts the man lets go every now and then.

Jeon Yoonha sighs.

“How bad was it?”

She shrugs again. Her small body frame goes up and down with every puff she drags from her cigarette. She refuses to speak, so he understands the message, turning to the tulip bed again, this time not moving as if calculating what’s the next step not to mess around with the garden-surgery he’s performing.

“I guess I’ll never get over the fact that every day he grows more and more into his spitting image,” she blurts out, eyes locked on a passing cloud.

She breathes away a little cloud of smoke, too.

The man Jeon Yoonha remarried stands up, patting his bum to remove the dirt from it, then takes a seat beside her. He takes the cigarette away from her lips and drags one long puff from it.

“That’s not your fault,” he concludes, looking at her so tender she reaffirms the ‘I do’ she gave him more than 20 years ago. “Apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. But that doesn’t mean the apple gets to taste bitter as the leaves do.”

Jeon Yoonha, formerly known as Kim Yoonha, smiles despite the tug of sadness threatening to take her heart as a hostage.

But she doesn’t bend. Not to this. Never to this.

_ That bitter bitch will never imprison my heart. _

  
  
  


As Namjoon wondered if he was ever to meet the man that bent his body backwards due to the heavyweight of melancholy, maybe someday, who knew, maybe by accident (the literary world was a freaking napkin, everyone knew that), he didn’t have to think about the fact that he had already met him, 26 years ago, greeting him with the first word he’d ever spoken, much to his mother’s remorse.

His mother always omitted his name not to cause him disgust, unaware of the stories she always told him about  _ a literature teacher  _ that always remained unnamed, stories she couldn’t help herself from blurting out without warning; she was careful, too, not to compare his son to his father, at least not out loud.

His mother didn’t have the heart to tell him.

It’d have meant for her to surrender to _ that bitch  _ he always heard her spoke about, but he never really understood what she was talking about, so he never really asked.

Jeon Yoonha sometimes wondered if she was a good mother.

She knew, too, as a mental health professional, she always did enough.

She was just human, after all.

A human trying to understand love; such a burden of a mission, really, and his son had just picked it too, proud of calling it his own battle cry.

Jeon Yoonha sighs. She’d done the same once, giving it all away, hands full, and the outcome was disastrous.

Her divorce saved her, though. The legal process, her friends, the social workers she found aid on; her parents, her son, her job.

She smiles, surrendering a bit— just a little bit— into melancholy, and leans her head on top of the head already resting on her shoulder.

Jeon Sungjin sighs too, then starts laughing. Yoonha doesn’t have to look at him to picture his bunny-like front teeth.

“You know what they say about sighing, right?” She murmurs a small questioning sound and smiles shyly. “They’re kisses you can’t deliver at the moment. Guess we just sent each other one.”

She closes her eyes. Little tears slip from her eyelashes but they keep on hanging there, sitting quietly, just making each other company, both of them sitting against the trunk of the tree they planted when Yoonha’s second son— and Sungjin’s first— was born.

Yoonha hopes both of them are safe and well, promising herself to visit them soon.

“I guess we just did.”

  
  
  


_ Apples fall from trees all the time. Experts say their taste has nothing to do with the tree they fall from, but the ground they fall on. _

_ Some of them wither away and bring the soil nutrients that later bloom into something beautiful. _

_ Some of them never fall, too scared to move at all. _

_ Some of them are shaken from the tree too soon, they hurt themselves in the fall. _

Namjoon looks at the piece of paper where he’s writing and huffs.

He doesn’t feel inspired. His head is not on his shoulders, but far away from him, maybe in space, near Mars, looking for water.

His heart, though…

He bets it’s in Lewes, locked inside his room, hopefully having good dreams and plenty of rest.

Namjoon blushes furiously, balling the page he was writing on.

He starts again.

_ Leaves from a tree… _

  
  
  


She’s letting him talk. On and on he goes, rambling about scripts he’s reviewed and ideas he’s pitched in so naturally, it actually breaks her.

It truly breaks her to see him talk nonchalantly as if he hadn’t cried his eyes out half an hour ago. As if his inner world weren’t crumbling, as if this last year he’s lived hadn’t really happened and it consisted of oniric material he’d carelessly call ‘nightmare fuel and nothing else’.

_ But it’s always been like this,  _ Raphaella thinks. Seeing him like this is a small part of their meetings lately, except this last breakdown gave her a handful of red flags she can’t just ignore.

He had never said he gives up.

She has her hands full. Of him, his tears, of his surrender. His worries, his anguish; the words of love he’d love to whisper to his ear, the words of hate he’d love to yell at—

“What would you do?” he asks suddenly, startling her. He drags long from his cigarette and huffs it to the window, far away from her.

Raphaella blinks; she’s always a cat in these situations, she always lands on her feet. She’s mastered the art of pretending and she won’t fail this time, not even when her insides are screaming at her, ordering to steal a cigarette from her friend, ignoring the fact that Georgina hates the smell of it, let alone on her.

She pretends she’s thinking, a serious frown above her pensive eyes, showing him she’s not sure of what to answer. In reality, she has no fucking idea of what he’s asking her; the only thing she’s aware of is the craving inside her belly and lungs. Her train of thought drifted and crashed long ago, and she doesn’t care for the wreck and the havoc it may have caused. She just wants to see him rambling, forgetting, dusting it under a mental rug she always has to keep an eye on, until she’s fully recovered of the bomb he just dropped on her by saying he gives up.

He can’t give up. She wouldn’t take it.

Raphaella wants to sigh, to give up this act, to tell him she’s a bit too tired of all this nonsense that comes right after he bares his soul in front of her; she’d be more comfortable hugging him and wiping his tears away, than talking about stuff that is not important right now. She doesn’t know how, but she’d gladly try to hold his pieces together until they find some glue to fix everything up, correcting every bad thing in this tragicomedy oh-so-called life.

_ Fixing him like a script,  _ she tells herself.  _ Fucking scripts that are not his nor mine but someone else’s, too badly written to stand on their own. Always the fixers, never the makers. _

“I think I will take it. The idea sounds promising, and that’s on god, I tell you, but if you could only tell me what you’d do, then I’d—”

“Oh, dear, you should totally take it,” Raphaella agrees, letting go of her empty cup of tea. “If they offered it to you, isn’t it yours already?”

He draws a perfect ‘o’ with his lips, rolling his eyes around the room, thinking.

And god, he is  _ really _ thinking.

Raphaella finds her heart too endeared by the sight of his friend going through what she said. It’s annoying, really (she’s gone through that with her wife, she’s ranted about it and said nasty comments about all of this); the way Jackson trusts her word to a level she has never reached, not even at the highest confident spot she’s been upped to by her direct bosses.

It’s sad, too. How he trusts her with a passion she’s never tasted, except for the times she’s marveled by the sight of Georgina when she’s writing, her pursed lips and absent eyes tempting her to go and demand her whole attention, distracting her from all that passion she’s never felt.

Sometimes she just thinks, and thinks, and thinks, with no feelings in between that are worth writing about.

Jackson smiles and looks at her with enough warmth to melt the worst of winters. She can feel his sight around her skin, hugging her. “It’s settled, then,” he palms his knees and nods. “I’ll tell them first thing in the morning.”

Raphaella smiles back to her best friend. “I’m glad my wisdom was of some use.”

“It always is, Ella,” he reaches her now free hand, cupping it with both of his hands. “What would I do without you?”

It’s bitter. It’s painful.  _ It’s all but sweet,  _ she resolves, the amount of love she feels for him. The kind of love that hurts the most when it’s in pain and you see it all comes from a spot you’ve named  _ family, _ plaguing it with every bad thing you want to get rid of, knowing beforehand you’re pinned to your own doings, realizing you can’t do shit for your loved ones to save them from hurting since helping them directly will ultimately hurt them way worse.

“Crash and burn,” she sighs. “Up in flames, you’d go.”

She truly believes this. 

Jackson laughs.

He thinks Raphaella is joking, and she lets him be.

_ All but happy. _

  
  
  


It’s natural, how another pile of books starts to build itself by his left side. He could think of its use if he weren’t distracted with a deliberation he can’t seem to finish.

A paperback copy of  _ The Bell Jar _ crowns the tower of books he’s planning on bringing home. His intentions are to read them once again so he can decide which one will be the one his students read for their midterm paper, due before the last week of their Christmas break.

He’s to pick five, one for each of his classes, but the one from Linguistics I is already chosen (they will loathe reading Chomsky at first, but he truly believes they’ll be grateful once they start on Saussure and Heidegger later on if they wish on sticking to linguistics until Linguistics III), and the students on Linguistics II are a mere sum of 10 people, so he thinks he’ll go easy on them this time (maybe he’ll throw in some neuropsychology and let them roam Vygotsky’s works until they go ill by scientificity).

But the rest… he’s not sure. Even when he has a list of books many of his students have already read, he’s found himself more than once telling them to reread works he’s assigned before, getting bad comments afterward, repeated papers, small laughs without bad intention followed close by non-friendly full-of-ill stares… 

Namjoon bites his bottom lip and worries it while seeing the books around him.

His mind is a mess. Not to mention he’s still to finish a book of his own, reach his editor and friend, Hoba, and get back home on time.

He takes a moment to rest his back against the chair he’s on. His shoulders angle down by him commanding them to do so, to relax once and for all, curving his back backward with not much force.

Namjoon hears a crack and all he sees is white for a millisecond.

_ this is it this is it FUCK _

“Oof, that must hurt!” someone voices, approaching him. He’s quick to smell a scent of roses leaning against his nose, a chest too close to his face followed by a helping hand on his back. “Are you alright?”

He recognizes the small voice and the hair now falling between the person’s chest and his face. “I’m fine, Gina, don’t worry.”

“Did I just hear it from across the room?” Georgina asks, taking some distance from him. Her hand goes back to her purse, handing him a small box with scented hand wipes. “Use it on your shoulders. It won’t take away the pain, but hopefully it’ll refresh you.”

Namjoon does, thanking her, seeing her take a seat on his table. She lurks on every title he has spread on there, waiting for him to finish, and Namjoon sees her taking notes mentally of every single one of them.

It’s charming, really. He doesn’t mind. It’s not like he’s already decided on the ones he’ll be using this semester. “Got your titles yet?”

She snaps her gaze away from the books and looks at him. “Sure do. We’re reading women. All women.”

He smiles. “Must be nice,” he nods. “I am careful of not taking away all the books you’ve selected for Lit III and IV, but if I ever pick one, let me know?”

Georgina nods carefully, getting the message loud and clear. “Are you done here?”

“Was about to,” he lies, tossing the hand wipe into the trash can next to the table. “You?”

“Just meddling.”

_ I can see that. _

“Wanna go get lunch together?”

  
  
  


_ (patbingsu) _

Seokjin opens his eyes.

There’s a tear stain below the piece of pillow he’s resting his head, leaving his skin with a sensation of itchiness he’s accustomed to.

Amidst the darkness, he lays still, his bare skin exposed to the small breeze coming from the small slit in which he opened Namjoon’s bedroom window.

The curtains are closed, so there’s no way he can guess time.

Seokjin closes his eyes.

He’s tired, his mouth tastes like hell, but all he can think is of   
_ (patbingsu) _ _  
_ that one dish he’d tasted again in the last dream he had.

He falls asleep again.

  
  
  


Raphaella walks in circles in her garden, barefoot, and tries her best not to giggle by the playful brushes of grass against her sensitive skin.

“I just wished they weren’t so rigorous,” she hears, and looks up.

Jackson sits by the garden table with a cigarette in his right hand and a glass full of iced tea on the other. The condensed drops of ice form a circle on his jeans, right above his knee, carefully bent to link that leg’s ankle with his other knee.

She’s listening, nodding, and answering him with short sentences just to keep him going.

The ashtray by the table beds a worrying amount of cigarette butts. She’s kind of relieved Jackson accepted to get some fresh air, or else Georgina would’ve had a stroke by all the ash and smoke she’d find in the salon whenever she returned.

She’s running late, Raphaella thinks to herself. “What do you mean by rigorous?”

“I mean nobody really cares about typos, Ella, for example,” he begins. “You know every single actor that works in the Academy. You could lend them scripts written in Comic Sans and they wouldn’t bat an eye.”

Raphaella smiles. “You may have a point.”

“I’m damn sure I do. They’ve returned seven of my scripts in the last two weeks because I forgot to add two or three exclamation points where I intendedly meant not to place ones,” he rants, flicking his cigarette for the extra ash to fall onto the ashtray. “It’s driving me nuts. It’s like they want to correct my style. Mine. They want to correct _me._ The one that makes those corrections.”

She sighs, feeling her belly buzz with a familiar vibration. “Well, you know  _ damn right  _ where those are coming from, right?”

Raphaella looks down at her phone, hidden under her frilly blouse, not minding what she’s saying. She unlocks it and reads:

_ Babe, are you alone? _

_  
_

A smile with an inkling of desire blooms on her lips. It wears down as she looks at her friend, looking at her, wincing, drinking from his tea. She mouths him ‘a minute please’ and starts typing.

_Jackson’s here. You need anything?  
_   
_  
Can get rid of him if you have plans involving this skirt I’m wearing_

_  
_

“I’m not saying she’s being the biggest bitch on earth,” she resumes her train of thought, tapping the ‘Send’ arrow, looking away from the device. “But she’s being the biggest, fattest, most annoying bitch on earth right now.”

Jackson lights another cigarette and says nothing, he just sees her secure his phone against her belly, between the skirt’s strap and her skin, and takes a drag.

Raphaella scrunches her nose, walking away from him, getting near to the walls inside the house’s garden. She’s careful not to step on the lilies, the peonies, the roses.

When she’s far enough, she takes a leap of faith.

“You know we’re going to talk about it sometime soon, right?”

She literally does.

Jackson rushes his tea, buries his halfway smoked cigarette, and stands up.

“I better get going.”

And falls.

But he doesn’t move. He just sees her there, with her phone buzzing against her skin, her bare feet, her eyes full of fear.

_ Don’t get mad at me. _

“You know it’s difficult.”

“I know it is,” she nods. “But I’m your best friend, and I’m tired of seeing you wasting your lungs away, not sleeping, not eating. I’m tired, Jackson. I want to help.”

She approaches him and sits by the table, forcing him to do the same by only looking at him.

“Let me—”

A ringtone interrupts her, muffled by her skin. She looks at it, then at his friend, and answers the call as he mouths her that it’s okay, he’ll wait.

“Hello?”

“Ella, you won’t believe this.”

It’s Georgina, of course, her voice seems to be agitated, so she worries. “Are you OK? Are you running?”

“I was, yeah,” she agrees. “I’m fine now. You won’t believe this.”

“May I put you on speaker?” Raphaella asks, doing it instantly and looking at Jackson, not waiting for her answer.

“…not. Just you, but it’s okay, no need to fret. It’s just that I had lunch with someone.”

“I taste betrayal.”

Jackson covers his mouth to smile.

“Nuh-uh, it comes with gossip, darling, so hold still. You ready?”

“I guess we—”

“I had lunch with the one and only Kim Namjoon.”

Raphaella’s eyes shoot up to meet his friends’.

She’s seen him pale before, at parties where he’s about to pass out or when he’s received bad news, but never this kind of pale.

“Gina, I—”

“Okay but hear this out. I know he’s my friend and the colleague I like the most, but this dude is always so predictable, right? Like, he’s always so easy to read; the guy is a damn book, for all I care,” she laughs.

“Gina—”

“He’s never doing something out of schedule, except for last year’s incident, if you know what I mean…”

“Gina,  _ stop.” _

“But I think— and my gut is never wrong, Ella, never— I think he’s seeing someone? Guy was so skittish and so careful with his answers, his back literally cracked once and I heard it across the room, Ella, I’ll be damned if he’s not getting fucked on the daily, nobody’s back cracks like that! I’m starting to believe he’s onto something—  _ onto someone!” _

It happens so fast she’s left there, in her garden, hearing Jackson excusing himself as he gets inside the house and bolts out of there.

“Get in here immediately,” she orders her wife, loudly, and hangs up.

Her bare feet are no longer ticklish against the garden’s grass, but they start to hurt once they’re hitting the streets, little pebbles and dirt sticking to their skin like lint on chewing gum.

She sees his car and begs for the traffic lights to please humor her for once in a lifetime, but of course, they don’t.

Not to her, not to anyone, ever.

Her heart balls itself into something unrecognizable.

_ Up in flames, he’ll go. _

She takes her phone from her skirt and hastily dials 999.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget: kudos and comments keep authors active~.
> 
> Ramblings between updates @ [TWT](https://twitter.com/shampoofaeries)


	5. Bad Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’d stay in the bathroom all day, he thinks, if it weren’t for the little detail of him being on another different country, naked, with a grown-ass dog licking his face, whimpering softly for him to feed him, that makes him remember he’s to get up and function like a normal person, even though this is one of those bad days he dreads so much.
> 
> Bad days in which he pretends he doesn’t exist, sleeping all day, barely eating, merely breathing.
> 
> I guess I did all of that already, eh, Monie?”
> 
> Although a bit weak, he manages to get up, shoulders curved downwards as he pulls his head through the biggest sweater Namjoon has, a pair of trousers he knows he won’t mind if he uses, and a pair of fluffy pants with koalas in them.
> 
> A faint smile purses his lips upwards, seeing the little, light-blue heads, eyes closed as if they were sleeping.
> 
> They remind him of Namjoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heavy content ahead. You've been warned.
> 
> I added some tags, characters, even a whole fandom.
> 
> Enjoy.

_If spring never comes, would that be better?_

_Will the icicles in my room melt when a sunny,  
_ _good day comes?_

 **IU:** Bad Day

“And they kept on talking about the soup,” Wheein laughs over her bowl, covering half of her mouth with the hand she’s holding her chopsticks with. “There was no soup, Hye, how did they even come up with that?”

They’re watching the usual newscaster on their TV screen say something about the weather. Wheein is careful to keep an eye on every cloudy or rainy one he warns them about since the kindergarten where she works tends to get muddy when it rains, and that often pisses the moms and dads, asking the teachers to be careful with their uniforms.

 _As if mud were the worst thing that could happen to them,_ she huffs, and her teacher friends do so too, but deep down they resign themselves and nod and take all the blame, knowing that’s a battle they lost long, long ago.

“I swear to god, kids impress me more and more each day,” she continues, chewing softly, a bit slow now, her tongue burning due to the spiciness of the gochujang she loves so much. “Were you like that when you were a kid?”

Wheein turns to Hyejin, facing her best friend with a smile on her face, hoping to meet the usual shy smile she never fails to beam at her, the usual result from every school story she tells her; but Wheein finds Hyejin’s eyes with tears about to fall from her eyelashes, her usually tanned skin pale by the light coming from her phone screen, and her whole body froze in place.

The ghost of her image, her thin and long hands holding her dearest phone with the keychain she gave her as a joke not so long ago, leaves her with the impression that she’s still there, although she can’t see her anymore.

It happens so fast she’s soon left alone on their couch, a bowl between her hands and puzzled face features, as she sees Hyejin hurrying to get out of their house so fast, Wheein sees stains of the ramen they were just eating moments ago on their coffee table.

The outline of her body figure and the face she’s learned to love over the past eleven years fade away from her eyes, her surroundings now mixed with the darkness in which she stays still, trying to catch a glimpse of her body, moving around the living room like a caged fiend.

It’s hard to see anything, now with the TV turned off by her own shaky hand, so she gets up and turns on the lights. “Hye? Is everything alright?”

Hyejin pockets the phone she’s gripping tightly inside her hands, puts on her coat, grabs her keys and goes as fast as she can through her usual checklist before going out.

“Where are you going?” Wheein asks loud enough for her to hear, and that’s the only thing that stops her.

Hyejin would love to answer that, but that’s the thing: she has no fucking idea.

“I can’t… I don’t—” she spills, her tone low, so low, as she hurries her pace to reach her own car, parked in their entryway.

Wheein runs right behind her, staying still at their door, and sees how she’s turning the car on, checking again her mental list  
_(it’s her eyes; when they’re busy, they go right and left and left and right as if she were reading)_ _  
_ reaching inside her bag with her right hand, touching every single belonging she has there, then she looks up  
_(oh, hye)_  
and mouths something Wheein can’t read.

“Drive safely,” she whispers, the sound muffled even to herself, not reaching her. She leads her right hand over her cheek and ear, simulating a phone, mouthing Hyejin to call her if there’s something she can do to help.

Hyejin looks at her briefly for a mere second, then glues her eyes on every side of the road, reversing the car with one simple movement.

Wheein flinches at the sound the tires make when she accelerates, echoing through her eardrums.

Her heart, too, screeches inside her chest, in a deafening note, but she’ll grow accustomed to it soon, she knows.

She sits on the steps of their front porch, hands cupping her own cheeks. Her eyes look up to the starry night the newscaster promised yesterday, but clouds are thick today, and it looks like it’s about to rain anytime soon.

Wheein sighs.

She goes back inside, knowing she has no appetite anymore. Holding a blanket she keeps on her favorite recliner, she finds comfort on the loveseat they were sitting minutes ago, and turns on the TV.

Her thumb searches for the news program (the serious one they usually see when they’re about to bid themselves goodnight), and she leaves it on, looking for a magazine underneath the little table on her right.

It’s gonna be a long night. Her heart, her throat, her shaky hands, tell her so.

Feeling too restless, bored by the magazine and the newscaster’s words, five minutes later Wheein turns up the TV volume and gets up, eyes pinned to the screen, getting into the kitchen to prepare herself a warm cup of coffee.

As the water runs through their coffee maker, she looks at the watch on her wrist.

**11.42 PM**

Maybe she’s still on time to watch some old cartoons on the TV.

 _That’s the power the TV holds,_ she thinks to herself, _the only damned thing on this house_ _  
_ (and Hyejin, but she’s not here, is she)  
_that calms me and makes me think I have nothing to worry about._

But she has.

Even with her cup of coffee and her eyes glued to the TV, her heart skips when she gets a notification making his phone go wild.

Wheein takes it, eyes unfocused, squinting at the light, and reads:

**PUPPYPOSTING has 3 new posts you’ve missed today!** **  
** **Tap here to see them.**

She grunts, throwing the damn thing to the loveseat.

_Fuck you, PUPPYPOSTING._

Not even two minutes pass until she’s picking it up again, looking through the posts she missed, heart-reacting to all of them and leaving comments under every single post.

It kinda helps her; she feels less giddy, more calm and very much endeared, and the state of cuteness she starts to melt into curls her into a bubble of warmth she’s thankful for.

Her coffee is left forgotten on the coffee table, going colder and colder by the minute.

She falls asleep watching a video of a black pomeranian walking through a big house, trying to catch up with his master’s pace.

The TV screen shows the latest news, but she’s fast asleep and unbothered by the noise (unlike her roommate, who tends to wake up and shut everything off before sleeping), she misses the photo of a kid, Shin Dajeong, who’s gone missing four hours ago, making the whole city paralyze in panic.

Wheein’s mind is far, far away from listening to any of it. She dreams she’s uploading a picture of a puppy she owns with Hyejin to PUPPYPOSTING, their photo so cute, they get tons of comments on how stunning the puppy’s mommies are, making her blush even in that fictional place she wishes so bad it’d come true.

The newscaster tells the viewers to please keep an eye on every kid they see on the streets that may look injured or in pain, accompanied by an adult, maybe by a man who’s about 40-50 years old; there’s a number under her picture and red letters all over the place, saying she’s been presumably kidnapped by him.

Wheein smiles.

She’ll most definitely wake up wanting a puppy.  
And Hyejin, too.

Jackson thinks of texting him once more when he finishes his third glass of whiskey. The bitter taste of it burns his throat, but it doesn’t bother him anymore.

Nothing can bother him right now, really, for he’s about to do what he’s always wanted to do.

His hand sends a sign for the bartender to pour him another drink. The way he looks at him, almost with pity, goes unnoticed, his eyes too busy reading the words he just sent to the man who won’t read them at all.

He’s sure he’s wasting his time with this pity party he’s throwing for himself at this makeshift bar he found open, but something sparked his thirst along the way, and he’s too drunk right now and too afraid of the level of alcohol in his blood to properly pinpoint what triggered this death drive of his.

He’s not sure if it was that night, the night he saw Namjoon completely drunk, telling him to back the fuck off; if it’s the news Georgina just dropped on him; or if it has anything to do with the mail he just received this morning, saying ///////

_/////// that’s it. That’s the thing that’s making me fucking sick ///////_

The only person who won’t leave Jackson’s mind alone is not very far from here, and he’ll need to build some gut and summon demons from down below not to crack or chicken out.

Jackson bottoms up his third glass of whiskey and looks at the bartender, licking his lips.

“One more.”

Although pouring it, the bartender looks at him, not minding nor giving a flying fuck about judging him this loud. “Imma need your keys, mate. Can’t let you drive like that. Have you seen the time?”

Jackson coughs after he shoots the drink down his mouth. His hand signals the boy, too young to be working in a place like this, barely legal, he thinks; maybe—

His red eyes meet the clock just above the door, telling him it’s 4 in the afternoon, dropping to the bell hanging from the door, close to a sign that points at him the bar he’s in is open.

It’s too late for him to notice the bar is actually closed, empty; he’s too drunk to hit the brakes on the careless, stupid rich brat he becomes when he’s drunk enough not to be able to forget he actually despises every single annoying habit he was raised by, aware of the endless loath he feels on the daily about the fact that he’s an heir to something he’s never wanted; too late to stop his hands from reaching his wallet and tipping the bartender a 50-pound note without even looking.

“I’m walking, darling, y’don’t have to worry ‘bout that.”

His hands are too numb, too stupidly into this whole act, he doesn’t realize he’s being served with another one, the bartender’s eyes glistening already by the thought of getting another tip, not letting himself weaken at the pet name he just gave him.

“On the house, sir.”

Jackson laughs, cheeks blushed and burning already, as he swallows it down. He pockets his wallet, blows a kiss to the boy, and turns away to leave.

On other terms, maybe in a parallel universe, one in which he wasn't this messed up, he’d have left him his phone on a scribbled note, tipped him random notes, and promised him sweet nothings before leaving, maybe he’d even have stolen a kiss or two from him, who knows.

Jackson chuckles at the thought, opening the door with much more force than needed, sending the bell upwards, startling him.

It echoes, stopping him for a moment, freezing the bartender on his side of the counter.

He looks at him, incapable of taking his eyes away from the dead stare Jackson’s giving him now, wondering where his laughter, tipsy self went, worried about the amount of alcohol he just gave him without really knowing if he’s dangerous or not, but following close every word he spits at him, because he’s magnetic, and he seems angry, and he’s hot, _on god,_ but—

“Don’t tell anyone I was here. Cover my tracks, hm?”

Jackson leaves the bar, leaving the man with a bell still ringing and a little cardboard hanging on the door, clapping against it, telling him he still has an hour to clean everything up before his boss arrives and asks him about the quarter of whiskey he just poured to a man when he was supposed not to, probably firing after shooting a string of degrading words at him.

He looks at the glass where the man drank from and thinks long, just staring at it, before pouring a drink for himself, making sure to drink it inside the backroom and not in the actual store where his boss keeps the cameras on, but before doing so, he looks at the glass against the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, looking for the lip marks of the man.

When he finds it he aligns them to his and drinks it slowly, as if it were water.

It burned. His skin, his mouth, his fingers, everything caught on fire.

He was the source, where the fire started and exploded with fire hazards once left unattended, setting up in flames everything  
_(stop)_  
around him, spreading it every time his limbs moved, their intention to move, to escape, although futile, were restless, too.

The fireball inside his very core, licking his guts and melting him inside-out, ignited his cries for help, but he kept on silence until it surpassed him.

He looked down and saw two hands holding him in place, long fingers sinking in his skin, nails carving in, and it hurt not only to feel it but to see it, how careless he was, setting him on fire on purpose, as if  
_(jongin, i’m not)_  
finding joy at the sight of him being pushed over the edge, in pain and struggling, his body overstimulated to react properly or to enjoy that at all.

Even though he had stopped feeling his own hands, melted already by the spit the fire had leaked from his scorching tongue, he managed to reach those  
_(jongin, stop, i’m)_  
but they fought back—

“I’m not done.”

The smell, the smoke, the shock,  
_(STOP)_ _  
_ the way he pierced through his pain threshold without mercy,  
**_(PLEASE)_ **  
the flames licking his cheek in which he was slapped,  
**_(STOP)_ **  
unraveled something inside his heart, a fire that would end up obliterating even the last ounce of respect he ever felt for him, the last hints of love he’d fought not to stop feeling, the dreams they’d once built together, it all went directly to  
**_(JONGIN)_ **  
hell.

And he did. He did stop.

He let him breathe, clean the tears on his face, move aside to stop breathing that dizzying scent he’d learnt to hate.

He let him go. Fell asleep, knocked out, right after.

But Seokjin never forgot.

And he refused to believe there was a chance it’d happen again, because if he’d have lived in fear every single day for the rest of his life, incapable of coming to terms with the idea that the person he loved the most, the person that swore with pretty words and daily flowers that he loved him back, was the same that had just taken advantage of him.

Of his body. Of his mind. Of his trust.

So he stayed. Thinking it’d never happen again, he stayed.

A scratching noise wakes him up, too insistent to be ignored.

_Monie._

But he doesn’t get up. His hands trace the route they’re used to follow every day.

His eyes are wet, his cheeks, too, and when he searches for the area in which his bum is resting, he finds the set of white sheets dry, which relieves him.

It’d be a burden to explain…

His right hand travels to his groin—

_(no)_

He pushes the covers off, finding his nakedness under it, dripping sweat, fluids he’s not fond of, and he, himself, too awake in a part of his body he usually pays no mind to.

Not on normal days, but on bad ones.

He had  
_(it keeps happening)_  
that dream again.

His face flushes red with anger, eyes desperately looking for things around him that’ll help him eventually ground himself, his hands gripping the covers he’s sitting on.

His revulsion comes up his chest, inevitably gagging at the thoughts filling his mind, the memory of him, the  
_(disgusting disgusting disgusting disgusting)_  
taste of alcohol in his mouth, the texture  
_(oh lord)_  
of his hands all over his skin—

Seokjin rushes himself to the bathroom, just in time to lift up the toilet seat and throw up nothing but saliva in it.

He’d stay in the bathroom all day, he thinks, if it weren’t for the little detail of him being on another different country, naked, with a grown-ass dog licking his face, whimpering softly for him to feed him, that makes him remember he’s to get up and function like a normal person, even though this is one of those bad days he dreads so much.

Bad days in which he pretends he doesn’t exist, sleeping all day, barely eating, merely breathing.

“I guess I did all of that already, eh, Monie?”

Although a bit weak, he manages to get up, shoulders curved downwards as he pulls his head through the biggest sweater Namjoon has, a pair of trousers he knows he won’t mind if he uses, and a pair of fluffy pants with koalas in them.

A faint smile purses his lips upwards, seeing the little, light-blue heads, eyes closed as if they were sleeping.

They remind him of Namjoon, he thinks as he goes down the stairs, wondering where he keeps Monie’s food.

Trying to dust under a mental rug the remnants of his dream, already starting to fade away, he pulls stuff out of drawers trying to find Monie’s kitchen, a part of him fueled by curiosity wanting to understand how his  
_(ex’s)_ _  
_ **_friend’s_ ** kitchen is organized.

Turns out, it’s not. It’s a damn mess. The worst Seokjin has seen in ages.

Seokjin starts to take everything out of the pantry, the drawers, the fridge, too into the task of reorganizing everything, he soon forgets this isn’t his house, nor his kitchen, his head too busy to think of anything, especially about bad days or bad dreams.

_where are you?_

Streets aren’t scary. Shadows around her, with grabby hands and all, get behind her body so fast, she tells herself she’ll be alright. They’re not fast enough. She’s trained to run fast, always focusing on the finishing line, they’ll never catch her.

She isn’t scared of streetlights, either. These are her friends, illuminating the ground in which she stomps with all her weight and presence, caressing her hair as she goes under them, one by one, crowning her little head just for seconds, then bidding her goodbye, missing the queen she was for a mere instant, waiting for the day she’ll return to them and reign the streets as sovereign as she can be at the small age of six.

She isn’t scared of stray cats, no. They’re not enemies, although they lurk and hiss at her from their stinky thrones, telling her the alleyways are theirs; and she’s smart enough not to contradict them, understanding that’s forbidden territory. And it seems they won’t tell her, but she’s already noticed: the spots under parked cars, even if they get colder by the minute, are theirs, too. Their eyes shine bright at her for a moment so small, sending her a message, telling her to go back, but she turns her back at them, knowing it’s better not to listen, not to see. If she did, she’d allow darkness to enter her mind once again, and she’s aware that—  
  
_that’s not the place i’ll find you in._

She isn’t afraid, not at all, not if she keeps repeating the magic words to herself. 

Not of all these things, things that have no name, no hands, no strength that outweighs hers.

She isn’t afraid. She isn’t afraid. She isn’t.

She’s fine.

The fall in which her soles stomp on the ground echo around her, quick to make a left turn here, a right turn there, getting irremediably lost. But she knows she’ll be alright. She’ll be okay even if she’s lost; she believes with so much faith that, as long as she keeps on running, she’ll never be found.

And once she reaches it, her safe place, she’ll hide there forever, and she’ll never be found by anyone that’s not her mother.

A sharp pain in her chest forces her to stop. Her body bends forwards as she catches her breath, pressing her hands against her knees, feeling how they tremble as if an earthquake had taken over her whole body.

She’s fine. She’s fine. She’ll make it.

When she recovers completely she looks up—

_ah… you’re hiding. don’t worry. i’ll find you._

Dajeong takes a moment to look at the moon alone, just like her, swimming peacefully inside the vast, dark blue night sky—

_then we’ll take off._

She starts running again.

_I know you’re down there._

_Tea is getting cold. Come on._

Namjoon is outside, it’s true, and he’d think of asking how the hell does he know, but he’s too busy thinking he would rather stay here if he had a choice.

If his editor upstairs weren’t waiting for him, if he hadn’t patiently shut his mouth at every rain check he’s given him, if Namjoon were sure he’s not tired of his lack of stability, he would gladly go home without even flinching.

But he can’t do it. Not to him. He’s been put through a lot of shit and Namjoon knows this is the least he can do.

His eyes look up, trying to find the end at the skyscraper above him, still not getting used to the sight, but they stop when he realizes he’ll need to get out of his truck if he wants to reach the part in which the concrete meets the sky.

He won’t get out, though. Not yet.

And no, he’s not stupid, nor stubborn. He’s…

_About to be devoured by a bunch of wolves, that’s how I fucking feel._

He won’t walk inside the wolves’ den just for fun. He’s not stupid.

His fists clench, clammy as ever, as he looks at the journal on the passenger’s seat. An elastic hairband holds it all together, too stretched, and about to give up. Its covers are worn, with small handprints painted with ink all over them, and Namjoon knows, he knows, it’s a mess whichever way you look at it.

There’s a red pen inside the journal, making it look a bit thicker than it already is, curving the flat surface.

He hasn’t opened in months, and Namjoon is sure, so damn sure, his editor will be mad when he tells him, once and for all, he hasn’t checked any of his poems as he promised he would do.

He’ll have to be honest, though. These things can’t be postponed forever. After all, he’s not a liar.

 _Oh but I wish I could be,_ Namjoon begs, looking up once again. _I wish I had no problem with lying or being lied to._

Namjoon grabs the journal and unbuckles his seatbelt, eyes fixated on that damned thing he’s evaded all these months.

Although tempted to call Irene, he holds the impulse back and away, stretching the elastic hairband until it snaps, hurting his fingers.

_It’s just words. Just words, Joon. Words you wrote once and left there to be read._

His eyes open wholly, unaware of his eyes squinting, and he reads the first page out loud.

“Monologue.”

Namjoon’s eyes stop at the title, aching to continue, and they jump onto the next line, the title of his first poem, the one written in January, right after his breakup, the one he wrote for himself at one sitting, probably in the timespan of five hours, non-stop, eyes swollen, bloodshot red, and hands tense as hammers, the one he swore he would never publish.  
  
“Reflection.”

**_No._ **

Namjoon closes it shut, startling himself.

He leaves it on his lap, as if it were scorching his hands, lifting them unconsciously to the steering wheel.

Breathing in and out, just like Irene taught him, knowing it’d be a dick move to leave without telling him, he decides to stay, though.

Namjoon breathes in again, this time holding it in.

He knows he’s been wearing his words and wits as his armor for as long as he’s lived, but these are words that would never work as a defense mechanism against anything. They’d expose him instead, showing his insides instead of protecting them, for the vultures out there to eat and feast on.

“I can’t read them. I _can’t_ publish this.”

It’s a task already hard as it; one of the very personal perks he has (one he doesn’t want to let go) is the habit of wearing his heart on any damn sleeve he wears, and ripping it off for his editor not to see, of course, takes a whole lot of effort. Let alone to let him publish it, his whole heart, his pain, for the world to see.

 _No, thank you,_ he shakes his head. _I should’ve said no. What was I thin—_

His phone buzzes, left with his screen facing up, so he reads the incoming message:

_We’ll do it together, Nam._

_Please come up?_

Namjoon feels the knot in his throat tighten.

Reading himself, reading the words he wrote on days in which he couldn’t see a single silver lining, a good day, nor a ray of hope on anything, the days he hardly managed to lift his body from the bed to go straight to his boss’ office in order to ask for an impromptu unpaid leave, not able to promise a date in which he could return, stuttering at the weak reason— a lie— he’d give if asked…

He lets out his breath, dizziness preying upon a lot of brain cells he’s denying oxygen to.

His hands reach for the journal, holding it in tightly so the pen  
_(or the words or the pain or the heartbreak)_ _  
_ doesn’t slip out.  
  
Namjoon gets out of the car and locks it before going inside the skyscraper.

“Hun?”

The voice of her husband snaps her back to reality. Her eyes, trying to focus the shape of his chin, and the dark, rich color of his hair, cling to her immediate consciousness as she grips him tightly by his forearms.

She’s soon being carried and taken to a bed near the place she was standing, and a helping hand places a wet towel on her forehead, her cheeks, her arms.

It feels just like heaven, she’s about to pass out again, but she feels a pinch on her right arm, waking her up, waking her senses.

“What happened?” Irene whispers, too weak to speak. Her husband shushes her, whispering sweet nothings to her in a calm, deep voice she recognizes as his _Seojoon Park, clinical psychologist_ voice. This makes her smile, but her face is too tired, too pale, to react. “Did I faint?”

Seojoon looks at her and melts, seeing her body so small, yet so strong, holding onto what's to come in this last trimester before they become parents.

“Almost. I got you,” he explains softly, still patting her arms with the wet towel. He sees her blushed cheeks and her prominent belly and once again he holds back this infinite urge of telling her not to move anymore until the baby comes out, but that’s crazy talk and he knows it.

Irene is unstoppable, be it on her maternity leave, vacations, or regular weekdays, she’s always going here and there, he knows she’ll flip him the bird first and curse at every single person that tries to stop her before slowing down.

Still… 

“You better stay put, honey,” he says warily, letting every word leak out of his mouth with guilt. “I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t know what to do if you fell, or…”

Or worse.

Irene pouts, but says nothing.

“We want him to be born healthy, remember?” Seojoon puts the towel aside and holds both of her hands, placed on top of her belly button. “He needs a calm body to fully develop the rest of his body and his little mind. And you’re doing an excellent job… but even so, we can _always_ do it so much better.”

Finally, she sighs.

“I ultimately despise the fact that you know how to talk me into things,” she chuckles lightly, looking at him. “They told me, my colleagues, my mum, my sister: don’t marry a psychologist. It’ll be like marrying your own Jiminy Cricket.”

Seojoon leans to kiss her forehead. “That bad, eh?”

“Not at all,” she smiles, shifting, placing her fists against the cushions under her upper back, sitting up on the bed. “It’s been lovely, really. A bit tedious, maybe?”

They both nod, laughing. “But you would never change it for a thing.”

“Oh, I would never, baby.”

A comfortable silence falls between them, not saying it, how they both feel their words on a level too personal, too relatable.

“I guess I was a bit shocked because of a call I received, that’s it.”

Seojoon tilts his head. “A call? From whom?”

Irene struggles a little bit and Seojoon knows it instantly; he’s her husband, after all. Too nosy, too zen sometimes (when he’s not worried about their baby or the economy or her), too considerate, it’s almost painful not to be able to disclose every piece of information she has.

He understands, though.

“Alright. You don’t have to tell me. But—”

“No, it’s not that I don’t want to tell you,” she huffs, pissed off by the confidentiality in which her job constricts her, suddenly feeling worn out, shaken from the calm state she was in prior to the words she just heard, wanting so bad to tell him everything about it. “Let’s say… I have a friend.”

“You have a friend.”

“Aha. And that friend… is going to do something,” she explains, noticing how her husband opens his eyes and mouth to ask more, but she rushes not to keep him hanging. “Nothing bad. Just a big step. Another one. And he’s scared. So he just called me to ask what he should do.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. _Oh._ As if I should be the one to make that call? And this thing is _huge,_ like… let’s say, signing a contract?” she offers, and he nods. “And he’s so terrified, so, so terrified, it… it’s hard. Not to be able to help him more than just talking him out of his anxiety for a little bit.”

“But that’s our job.”

“Precisely,” Irene agrees, her eyes fixated on his eyes. “And his background, his story, boy…”

Seojoon smiles, warmth spreading inside his chest at the pet name she calls him reminds him of their very first days as colleagues, way back in time when they were just students. “What about it?”

“He’s this big, soft, giant intellectual, you know?” Irene uses her hands to explain, too, and it’s so her, Seojoon can’t help but let out a little laugh, for her slim hands are not really depicting him, but just shapes and incantations she’s inventing on the go. “He has this whole pack of resources under his sleeves and he’s _so_ oblivious of them. He’s come a long way, babe, I’ve often found myself holding back not to point at how much progress he’s made directly.”

“Because that’s not how we work.”

 _“Exactly,”_ she agrees, and she takes a moment to breathe in, speaking so quick she needs to take breaks not to faint again by lack of oxygen. “And… he _deserves_ this. This boo—”

Her mouth falls shut. Seojoon lifts his eyebrows.

“This _contract,”_ she corrects herself. “He’s ready. He just has to sign it.”

“But that’s on him, honey.”

“And you don’t think I know that?” Irene snaps, but the way her husband is looking at her lets her know he’s not hurt at this, but amused and a little entertained, by everything she’s saying. “I know that.”

“So?”

Irene sighs. He’s psyching her up, she knows it so well, and it pains her but it also opens her eyes and she hates it, she rues the day she said her vows on their wedding day, the _I do,_ the party and everything else, too bitter right now not to be fully aware of the huge lie this all is, for she’s never been happier.

“So why am I so worried about him? Fainting, and all, at the thought of him breaking into a million pieces, smashing his dreams against the nearest wall because he’s _so_ damn hurt he’s not able to fly solo by himself, although he’s capable of, not being able to talk him into some damn sense just because I’m away, in a damned maternity leave that _leaves_ me bedridden, founding a fan club of haters of fried chicken, _my fucking favorite food,_ Seojoon, and thinking this little guy over here,” she points at her belly, words spurting from her mouth, “better be a football star, or something akin because I’ve had enough of his kicking, _I’ve. HAD. IT.”_

Seojoon places a hand on it, on the round shape that makes her skirt look like the comfiest place on earth, and he does his best to stay still, thinking long and carefully the words he’s to use.

And Irene knows exactly what he’s going to say; she knows exactly what’s happening inside her heart, her mind, but she doesn’t want to voice it out. She won’t, because—

“Well,” Seojoon murmurs, though loud enough to cut her trail of thoughts. “You see him as your friend. You can start from there.”

Irene looks at him, his stare on every ruffle under his fingers, playing idly with them liken a little kitten playing with yarn, drinking the sight of the skin of his hands, of his arm, of the little area of skin exposed on his chest, his neck, his face.

And she hates it, how right he is, how peaceful he looks and how deeply in love she is with him, with every single one of his ideas and that precious mind that holds them.

“Thank you.”

Seojoon leans to drop a little kiss on her forehead.

It dissolves her thoughts, filling her with an inner peace she holds on to like a lifeline.

“Anytime, honey.”

Namjoon lets his eyes wander while he tries to ignore the fact that he’s just bared his soul to the one and only Jung Hoseok.

He can’t blame him. They were destined to be friends. They clicked immediately and always held a professional relationship in which they’d hang out to work peacefully, hand in hand, doing marvelous things on their careers, one of them adequating books edited by Hope World Publishing House to the syllabi of his assignments, and the other giving him the latest news on the literary world, winning a friendship along the way, by all means, since their personalities consisted on a match that soothed their anxieties but also kicked the other in the guts every once in a while, getting stronger by never letting themselves unsupported by the other.

Namjoon pretends he doesn’t see Hoseok’s index finger pacing his words, eyes finding his rhythm,  
_(or the lack of it)_  
looking at the decorations on Hoseok’s shelves, consisting mostly in figurines of all shapes and colors instead of books, as a normal editor would have.

Hoseok always found a way of tweaking the word normal for him to fit inside it without the need of feeling any kind of discomfort.

_And he is a natural on not wanting to be a goddamn natural._

It’s not long until Hoseok places the journal on top of the desk he’s sitting behind of, looking at him with piercing eyes, their electricity stopped only by the pair of glasses he’s wearing, and he takes two or three sips of tea before speaking, gesturing disgust, sip by sip.

“My tea’s run cold.”

Namjoon lets out the air in his lungs, air he didn’t know he was holding.

_Is that… is that it?_

“Do you want anything?” Hoseok gets up, walking to the small kitchenette he has installed behind a wall, near his personal bathroom, but he remains silent.

Namjoon is curious, not to say kind of hurt, but he’s patient.

Or at least that’s what he’s always thought of himself, that he’s that calm, patient person one can rely on in times of desperation.

His face gives away the nervousness, with his bottom lip being preyed by his teeth non-stop, almost drawing blood from it.

Hoseok takes his time, though, sipping the tea from his cup so little, he’s barely making any sound.

His hands leave it on the desk, a few centimeters away from Namjoon’s journal, and he finally taps his index finger on it.

“You have lovely handwriting.”

 _So that’s it,_ Namjoon concludes, once again breathing out every one of his worries, thinking he’ll never let go completely of them.

He’s scared as… he’ll be damned, no, he’s not only scared, but he’s also petrified by the thought of not having enough material for his friend to publish. He’s afraid these pages hold weak words and sentences only he can understand. It’d be a letdown for Hoseok, having the printing date so close now, he feels guilty he’s bringing it just now.

On the other hand, though, he’s also scared of Hoseok actually liking it. Liking the damned thing as if it were pure gold, holding something inside of them, deep down of all those words, something that’s worth the shot.

But he doesn’t know which fear will be the one that’s gonna bite his ass and make him act like a total idiot in front of one of his dearest friends.

_Not to say the only one I have._

“And?”

Hoseok, eyes lost in the steam in which the scent of his peppermint tea dances, look at him.

“Nothing else,” he reclines on his chair, comfortable as he can get, and lets both of his arms rest on the armrests. His golden rings shine under the warm light coming from his lamp, and Namjoon thinks he looks tired, maybe disappointed, but he could be reading too much into it, guilt pinching him in his ribs with sneaky fingers he can’t nor knows how to stop.

“So that’s it.”

Hoseok shrugs.

“It’s your call.”

Namjoon swallows a thick mass on his throat he’s grown accustomed to, impeding the circulation of air to his airways, and almost chokes on his own spit as he tries to tell him that _no, he won’t do this, and that’s his final choice._

But he wants to know why. Why is it his call to make, and not his, as his editor and literary agent, and most importantly, as his best friend?

Hoseok reads him so well; he’s an editor, and his editor, after all.

“What are you so afraid of?”

Namjoon could go for days. They both know it. The answer is not easy, it’s not short, and it’s not sweet.

“I don’t want people to read it.”

“I just did.”

 _You’re not the kind of person I’m scared of, idiot,_ Namjoon wants to yell at him, aggressiveness having already taken hostage of his rationality.

He manages to rise above it with a sigh.

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t,” Hoseok takes his time to open Namjoon’s journal, looking for something, and it’s just as if he were lurking inside his underwear drawers, or something, that Namjoon feels uncomfortable to an extent in which he wants to tell him to stop. “This is my favorite.”

_Please don’t read it out loud, please, please, please._

Hoseok hands him the journal, instead, surprising him.

“I’d hate it if it never got to see the sunlight,” he says, and once Namjoon holds his dearest and most loathed possession inside his hands, Hoseok gets up from his chair. “I know what you went through, writing all that. I’ve felt it, too. That ambivalence is what has you on a riptide right now, hm?”

He’s facing something outside, something Namjoon can’t see, and for a moment it seems as if he were there, on his own, alone.

Although he’s too afraid to see the poem he showed to him, Namjoon is taken aback by his words and instantly wonders if Hoseok’s ever felt lonely, just like he does lately, with that intensity, that dreading, bedridding melancholy, but gets interrupted when his friend turns around and smiles at him, almost sadly, but with a coldness that hides pity,  
_(why am i reading too much into him, fuck)_ _  
_ even poison,  
_(he’s my friend, stop)_  
in his tongue.

“We’ve been through this many times.” Namjoon looks at him in silence, then decides it’s better to answer him, but gets cut in the middle when Hoseok decides to keep on talking, turning his back on him. “Isn’t art a way of understanding ourselves?”

_I guess—_

“A tool, perhaps?” Hoseok asks out loud, walking aimlessly until he’s let the question sink in, still not looking at Namjoon but at the city, instead. “I became an editor mainly because of that.”

“You like exposing people?”

Hoseok laughs dryly. “Not exposing, no, not quite,” he shakes his head. “Giving _you_ the spotlight, that’d be more accurate.”

“So you’re fine with publishing this,” Namjoon concludes, too eager to let his journal go, and at the same time caught in a messy riptide that tells him he’s to hold onto it until he dies, never letting it go.

Hoseok turns, finally, and looks him in the eye.

There’s no pity, no sadness, no nothing. It’s his soul in its purest form, its warmth radiating through the smirk he’s painting on his lips, and he nods.

“Some people don’t have the gift of words, Namjoon,” he shrugs again. “You do. It’d be a shame if you didn’t—”

Silence.

“It—” Hoseok croaks, throat too dry. _“I_ would—”

Namjoon is puzzled, seeing him biting his lips, not finding the words he wants to say, for it’s a weird thing to witness. Hoseok never runs short of words, if he recalls correctly, and he’s quick with words and sayings and inventing stuff in languages he learned ages ago, this seems a little out of character of him.

Hoseok murmurs something that sounds like an “ _i can’t do this_ ”, but dismisses it by looking at the ceiling, clearing his throat, and turning away from him once again.

“I’d be heartbroken,” Hoseok confesses, almost too low for Namjoon’s hearing to catch, but he does, nonetheless. “But I would… I would understand.”

Namjoon appreciates the gesture. He knows it’s not easy for an editor like him to let him choose, not with a publishing house that shoots deadlines to their authors on the daily, a publishing house that keeps track of every single error and detail on their dummies, working on the clock, most of their staff wears glasses already, so it really touches him, how far his friend is willing to respect his choice.

“Thank you,” Namjoon murmurs, looking at the bunch of pages inside his hands, burning him, hugging him, telling him he’s better off without them and, at the same time, crying and not wanting to get rid of, chanting ambivalent words in a screeching voice only he can hear.

A pang of curiosity and sadness kicks him on the chest, suddenly feeling forced to say something.

“Which one was it?”

Hoseok lifts both of his eyebrows. “What?”

“Which one did you like the most?”

It doesn’t take him long to answer.

 _“Seoul,_ of course,” he says, nodding. “I can hear it in my mind. I can feel it in my skin,” he exposes his left arm, and even in this dim light, Namjoon can see the goosebumps. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I read it three times. I never do that.”

Now it’s Namjoon’s turn to laugh. “You’re just saying it because you’re my friend.”

Hoseok joins him with a laugh that resonates through his office long and tenderly.

“Don’t be mistaken.” Puzzled, Namjoon looks at him, questioningly. “I rarely say nice things of the things I read,” he enlists, long fingers going up, one by one. “I never read manuscripts in one sitting, I find that a very sick habit, thank you for asking. And I never, _ever,”_ he stresses, “befriend my authors.”

Hoseok sits down, feeling lighter, crossing one leg over the other.

“Except for you, of course. You’re the rarest I’ve ever found,” he shrugs again, his mouth a thin line that pouts and smiles at the same time. “I’d like to keep you around, Nam. I mean it. And if that means I’m not to publish you yet, I guess I’ll have to be patient.”

Maybe it’s the lightning behind him flashing up the whole sky, startling him like a little kid, him, one of the most powerful men in the United Kingdom, that does the trick; maybe it’s the way Hoseok’s found his way with words again, laughing coyly at his own cowardness, explaining he’s always been terrified of many things in life, too, what softens his heart; maybe it is because it’s a fucking compliment that one of the most valued editors in all Europe has him here, without an appointment, looking at a piece of work that’s long overdue, not only telling him he’s not only the rarest and shittiest author he’s ever had but telling him he’s one of his most valued friends, not to say the only one; he doesn’t know exactly, but one of those things, if not everything, is what it takes for Namjoon to realize Hoseok has always seen him as his friend, worrying about what’s inside of him first, instead of jumping into what’s on his book, actually caring for him with actions and not just words, that makes everything fall into place.

Even his fear. Because what Hoseok is offering him is trust.

And that—

“Take it.”

That is all Namjoon has ever wanted.

“You’re sure?”

To trust someone.

Namjoon smiles, scared, excited, happy  
_(that bitch is here and her name is melancholy)_  
and sad, because he’s not ready to let go, just like he told Irene on that call he made on the elevator, but—  
  
His voice trembles, but his eyes are firm.

“Never been more sure.”

Dajeong arrives at the park she used to play when she was little, more than she is now, at least, and her eyes are quick to spot the bench she shared with Momma not so long ago.

And she feels at home, although it’s past midnight and she’s starting to get sleepy; the playground’s kinda eerie with no people playing in it, but she pays no mind to it.

Her footsteps are not fast-paced anymore. She simply walks towards the bench, remembering how she used to climb the wood and have a hard time sitting up there, while right now all she needs is to turn her back to it, sit, and rest her back against it—

_the only thing missing here is her._

Her small eyes, two everlasting raindrops of autumn leaves, take off, looking for—

_where are you? don’t hide_

Dajeong knows she’ll appear soon, but a pang in her heart tells her this time will be different—

_maybe if i call you out loud…_

A soft breeze lifts her hair tips and she closes her eyes, hands pressed together, fingers laced and holding themselves so still as she prays—

_byul? are you there?_

Her nape rests on the bench, her hands are getting clammy.

But she waits. And she prays.

_it’s me, dajeong…_

She repeats her name to the star, but—

_are you there?_

There’s no answer.

_ah... so it was true._

Momma told her once— warned her— stars were sometimes too shy to appear at night. She explained how they loved to shine and pose like all the famous women her mother cheered on her phone, on the Insta’s granny game to be precise, but this was just like a job for humans, so they often took days off from their routines, not appearing before her eyes, leaving her alone with Momma, who remained silent while she spoke to—

_you must be tired. i am tired._

Dajeong closes her eyes—

_i wish i could nap, too._

Her hands are quick to brush away the tears, already falling from her cheeks.

The right one hurts a little when she scrubs it.

_i wish i could nap forever, byul._

“Turn here.”

Byulyi does so, internally prepared for every instruction her friend gives her, eyes on the road, so focused, she limits herself to drive and not to listen to Hyejin’s voice cracking, saying over and over again she must find her, she must, she has to.

She doesn’t ask, she just does, and that’s how she works better. Not knowing, just acting.

“Go around that block and we’ll begin again.”

Byulyi’s eyes shoot up to the gas meter. “We have ¼ of gas, maybe we should—”

“Keep going. She’s in a park, I know she’s in a park,” she begs, urging her to keep driving. “She talks to stars, and it’s cloudy, Byul, she must be looking for it and it’s gonna rain any minute now, please, keep going.”

Byulyi ignores how she breaks down, her head halfway out of the window behind her, moving from side to side when necessary, her eyes on the lookout for any kid in the middle of a deserted playground or park, her heart in shambles, praying, aching.

She reaches for a cigarette inside the carton she keeps secured between her legs and finds nothing.

“Shit.”

It’s gonna be a long night.

Jackson walks through the crystal doors and almost falls to his knees, thankful for last year’s removal of the revolving door, for it would have killed him right here on the spot if they hadn’t changed it.

He strolls to the main desk and smiles at the receptionist, careful not to speak or give away the state he’s in, nodding at a young man whose name he doesn’t remember but knows well since he’s bedded him before, on that chair and over that desk, so it’s not a surprise how quick he is to give him a black card with a golden W engraved on it, dismissing it as soon as he can, ears red with shame and guilt.

That’s all he needs to get into the elevator, going up through the same skyscraper Namjoon’s descending, only on contrary elevators, unaware of their proximity.

That, too, would have killed him right there on the spot.

Jackson pukes on the elevator once, and then once more before arriving, careful not to stain the pants he’s wearing.

He doesn’t care for the sole of his shoes, though. If he’s to walk towards the piece of shit that’s been making him miserable for years, then he might as well leave his floor stained with his own vile.

Hell, he’d puke directly into his face if he could.

She finds it, finally, behind a cloud.

_!!!!!!_

It’s shy today, she recollects, but that’s okay since she’s kinda tired too.

_i thought you wouldn’t come._

Dajeong turns to her side and lies down on the bench, feeling the coldness of the wood against her back and her calves.

_i ran away._

She swears the constellation blinks at her, although she knows, she’s not a little kid anymore, that it’s possible clouds are tricky today, wanting to take Byul away from her.

_couldn’t you come down? take me with you?_

Tears fill her eyes, but she won’t break the promise she made to her.

_i’m as strong as i can but byul, it hurts._

Byul asks her, inside her head, where.

Dajeong breaks into crying without wanting.

She’d promised Byul she wouldn’t cry, but

_it hurts everywhere._

_everything hurts me._

The air caresses her legs, her cheeks, her hair.

_please come pick me up._

“I’m here to see him.”

The woman behind the phone pales entirely, seeing him, and smelling them, but she’s late when she hangs up and runs after him, doubling her in size, not strong enough to hold him back.

He bursts into his office with his hair on his forehead, sick to his stomach, smelling of vomit and hatred.

A pair of eyes, identical to his’, stare back at him.

“Jackson,” he smiles. “What’s the occasion?”

He gulps, hard, and clenches his fists not to stumble as he walks to one of the chairs in front of him.

“None in particular.”

“Ah,” he laughs under his breath, joining his hands together. “I guess _none in particular_ was a reason stupid enough to drink the whole bar, hm? Weird habit of yours, really. Must’ve gotten it from your mother.”

Jackson closes his eyes, finding it really difficult not to eye-roll his eyeballs into oblivion, but he knows this man is dangerous if toyed with, so he remains calm, as calm as he can, and looks back at him.

“I’m not here to fight.”

The man in front of him waits; he will never ask, Jackson knows it. He’s never asked, he’ll never be interested in his life, not unless it’s something related to the small role he’s to act for him, which turns him into a piece of the puzzle he’s already designed for him, months, even years, before his birth.

“F-father,” he stutters, too drunk to keep on a straight face, and he damns himself and his emotions, the fate he’s to live, the life he’s living and he doesn’t deserve, for making a weakling out of him.

At least he has something in common with the man now standing before him, he thinks, face unbothered, preparing his stuff to leave, never interested.

“Don’t leave.”

“If you’re not going to talk like a man, I don’t have to listen to any of your sayings,” he chants, bored, as he stacks papers inside his suitcase. “I don’t give second chances. You of all people know that.”

Jackson’s heart breaks apart as he sees him walk away once more, indifferent to the pain he’s obviously in, his suitcase hanging from his hand, using her assistant as a rack for a moment, as he puts on his coat.

Jackson feels a wave of rage drowning his rationality. His lungs implode, fueled by the pit of fire that used to be his stomach.

“I’m talking to you, asshole! Why the fuck won’t you listen to me?!” he screams atop of his lungs, breathing in sharply when he realizes what he’s just done.

Jackson’s father stills.

His body turns around.

And he claps once. Twice. Thrice.

“He’s a man!” he laughs, still clapping. “He cusses and speaks up, Marla! He’s finally a man!”

Jackson sees red, too dizzy to focus, wrath running amok through his veins. He’s ashamed, guilty, embarrassed; he’s red, sees red, and he drags red from his hands with his nails, carving little smiles to his skin, kind of like a sick trick he’s playing to himself.

“If only you could give me an heir now,” he hums, pensive. “If only you could do something right for once and fuck that lady of yours, like the man you say you are, Jackson! For once! Just once! Then, and only then, maybe I would consider listening to what your filthy, deviated mouth has to say. But not before. Never before.”

Jackson stops listening, too tired and too irate to see him go, falling on his knees as he hears the door closing in front of him.

Jackson stays there even after they shut down the lights on the whole floor, his body like a grave buried deep into the ground, and when he’s sure he’s completely alone, he starts crying.

It takes him hours, he’s not sure of how many, to collect himself.

The man on the first floor of the skyscraper calls him a cab as soon as he sees his face.

He knows where he lives, so they don’t speak, it’s not needed.

Jackson leaves the tower, heart in pieces and scattered who knows where, then he rides the usual cab that will take him to his own personal hell.

But it’s always been like this. It’ll always be like this.

He hates to say it, to acknowledge it, really, as much of truth as it is, as much as this act repeats itself month after month; growing fonder of the idea, although it makes him sick to his own core, he knows he’ll never escape this hell.

He’s destined to it. Bound to it.

The patch of skin where he used to wear his golden band never fails to remind him, the skin tone there a bit lighter, as if nothing bad ever touched that slim part of him, a part that’s still his.

Jackson wonders if he, himself, his body and ideas, were ever something he owned.

As he arrives at his home, to the wife he was forced to spouse, to her comments on how the police came all the way down just to ask how things were with him, worried that he’d killed her already, questions to which she had to lie, of course, he answers himself.

_Not even by chance. I’ve never had control over anything._

So he gives up.

“Is that her?”

Hyejin holds herself still placing both of her hands in front of her, feeling the momentum in which the brakes moved her and her partner forward. Her eyes open up wider than they already are, scanning the park where his partner halted the patrol.

She looks outside the car window and sighs.

“It’s her.”

Hyejin starts unbuckling her belt, ready to jump out of the car, but her partner’s hand holds her steadily by her arm.

“Maybe we should call the cops first.”

“No, Byul, she’s hurt. She’s been away for hours.”

“How do you know it’s her?” Byulyi asks, and Hyejin would love to answer her question, knowing it’s useless. She knows anything she says will not be fully understood by anyone but her.

They’ve gone through hell and back these days, she feels a connection with her in ways she can’t even begin to explain.

Her heart aches when she speaks, the evident signs of the pain she’s been through raises every hair she has on her skin, making her go home with everything on her back; the weight of her story, as short as it can be even when she’s just six, it’s enough to break someone’s back in two.

And she knows she’s stepping on thin lines here, coming all the way downtown looking for her when nobody asked her to, but she’s the only one who was completely sure of where she could be.

Even in the middle of the street’s eerie darkness, and under the faint light the streetlights provide, she knows she’s looking for it.

The girl has half of her face illuminated by the way she’s looking up, and she recognizes the colors in her skin, painted there with angry fists and a ruthless heart.

Hyejin’s heart, once again, shatters.

She gets out of the car and tells her partner  
_(in crime)_ _  
_ not to call for backup just yet.

Byulyi opens the windows as she sees her friend jog to a bench where the missing kid is sitting, reaches for the glove compartment and pulls out a packet of cigarettes she’s about to finish.

“This better be legal, Hye,” she murmurs, with the cigarette’s butt tightly trapped between her lips, and she lights it.

Dajeong sees the woman approaching her, hands inside the pockets of her skirt, and she knows it’s over.

She waits until she’s sitting beside her, on the floor, to look at her.

“What are you doing here?”

Hyejin smiles at her. Dajeong sees she’s been crying, but she has too, so it doesn’t matter.

“Byul told me where to find you. Your mother is worried, Dajeong. We should go back.”

Dajeong holds her stare, and Hyejin needs to remind herself she’s only six, even though her eyes say different, too tired already as if she’d lived for ages, went through hell and back.

She’s gone through many things, Hyejin thinks to herself, and I can’t do anything about it, but this.

“Are we going home? With Momma?”

Hyejin freezes but ends up shaking her head.

“We’re going back with a friend,” she whispers, as if offering her steps, negotiating. “Then you’ll wash up, you’ll answer some questions—”

“Not again!”

“Dajeong…”

“I don’t want questions again. This is like the worst exam ever,” she cries, sitting up. “Please let’s go home, Hye.”

She closes her eyes at her voice, her plea, but there’s nothing she can do.

Nothing.

“I’ll be by your side,” she promises. Hyejin extends her pinky to her, intertwining hers with it once she lets her. “I’ll be there.”

“Is Momma gonna be there?”

Hyejin doesn’t know.

“She will.”

Guess she’ll have to find out soon.

_What a long day._

Namjoon is parked outside of his home, having decided he won’t come out of his truck, at least not until he takes a moment to fully take in everything that’s happened so far, leading him to this point, to him and his sweaty pair of hands holding a flower arrangement he bought in a jiff, without thinking, seeing stars, with a heart full of hope he’s not used to wear inside his chest.

He’s an excitable person. That is the first thing he acknowledges. And maybe he went a little over the edge this time, buying flowers for someone else just to celebrate a little win in his life. But Namjoon is not stupid enough to see that this is not a valid excuse. It’s not his success that made him buy flowers for him.

It’s the fact that he can’t stop thinking about this new leaf he talked about with Irene, and the huge load of changes suddenly making presence into his life, like a parade of good things that don’t seem to stop.

He needs to stop it, he knows he’s being naive. This confidence in the small events that have clouded him with just glimpses of a happy future, the smile that carves dimples into his cheeks, the dumb face he’s seen he puts on every time he remembers he’s at home, ready to talk to him, to ask him what’s up with his life, to cheer him up.

 _Heart on a fucking sleeve,_ he thinks, grasping the plastic around the flowers tightly enough for none of them to fall, getting out of his truck. As he opens the door he thinks of an excuse to give to him, maybe saying these flowers are for his studio or the garden, or that these are for Monie, but his nose stops him.

_Pancakes?_

He forgets about excuses. It’s immediate.

Namjoon’s stomach growls and does somersaults as soon as he sees the man inside his kitchen, wearing an apron that holds an oversized sweater against his small waist, pajamas looking so fluffy he almost feels like crying.

“Jin?”

He turns around, not startled, but alert, and then he smiles. “Yeah?”

_Heart on my fucking kitchen cooking pancakes, I’ll be damned._

Namjoon takes a seat on a stool near the counter and looks at the batter, the pan, the spatula.

“Are you making enough for both of us?”

Jin chuckles. “Sure. These are yours, after all.”

Namjoon doesn’t have the heart to tell him he has no idea where the box came from; as far as he knew, the last time he ate pancakes was last year, and those must taste stale as hell.

Jin’s eyes linger on the flowers, but he doesn’t say a word, going mute abruptly.

No smile. No reaction. Nothing. He just keeps on cooking.

Namjoon is quick to put them aside, afraid of having ruined the moment, throwing them behind a couch; soon he’s on his feet, opening his fridge to help him with the pancakes but—

_This is not my fridge._

He straightens up and looks around, seeing little changes in everything.

_But this is my kitchen?_

“What—”

“I’m sorry,” Jin mumbles, turning off the stove. “I… I cleaned. I’m sorry.”

Namjoon laughs, although a bit stiff, and tells him it’s okay. “It’s not like you did the whole thing, right?” He reaches to get the bottle of milk, some berries, and two pieces of chocolate he finds lying around in a little box he never noticed his fridge had, until now.

Jin’s silence fills the small corner of the house.

Namjoon, taking a seat, looks at him.

“I’m sorry.”

And he means it. Namjoon can see the guilt in his eyes, the stiffness in his upper body, almost as if the hairs on his neck were all up, and he worries.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he reaches for his hand, but he takes it back. “Jin?”

It’s only a moment, Namjoon counts the seconds of it, and then he’s back to normal, relaxing his shoulders, nodding and curving the sides of his lips on a smile Namjoon doesn’t really buy at first.

“I think I’m still jet-lagged,” he excuses himself, and Namjoon smiles, knowing how much of a bitch is the whole deal of traveling through time and space.

“I get you.”

_Except he doesn’t. But he’s still to find out,_ Seokjin thinks as he takes a mouthful of pancakes.

The taste reminds him of something sweet, something he’s been tasting in the rare good dreams he still has from time to time, but he can’t quite put the finger in _what_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this chapter faster than any other, and I have to admit I'm amazed at my gut, ha.
> 
> Sorry it's been hell so far. I promise it gets better.
> 
> Kudos? Comments?  
> Let's chat!: [TWT](https://twitter.com/shampoofaeries).


	6. The devil between us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m glad I didn’t kill you,” he whispers, his index stroking the pink scar. “You could’ve caught an infection.”
> 
> “But I didn’t,” Namjoon counters this time, looking directly at him.
> 
> Seokjin closes his eyes, pressing his palm against Namjoon’s.
> 
> “You were not to touch anything from the kitchen if I was away,” he repeats just like he did ten years before, and the reminiscence of his words, of his past self— lost somewhere along the way— shuts his smile off.
> 
> Seokjin opens his eyes, looking directly at the pair of eyes in front of him.
> 
> “You promised.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll never stop saying you should keep in mind this is a heavy fic hehe.
> 
> As always, enjoy.

_ If I didn’t like you back then  
_ _ This break up wouldn’t have happened, right? _

_ From the day we stopped using “we” when referring to “us”  
_ _ Consolation for myself has all become my responsibility _

_ I’ll live today as if it’s nothing _

**Mamamoo:** Wind Flower

It tickled.

The skin on his neck, on his cheeks, and his lips. The zone right under his armpits, his stomach, his belly button, and the non-existent abs they’d sworn they’d train one day (with no result). His legs, his knees… 

He became ticklish after sex, which both turned him on and made him go so damn soft at the same time, he’d always want to stay in bed a little longer, dwelling on how his honeyed skin would react to his touch, kissing it with feather-like kisses, stroking it with just the tip of his fingers, threatening to lick him, his sweat, his own spit— which still hadn’t dried completely on his skin—, making him shudder with anticipation.

The day Jackson discovered the scar on his hand was probably a sunny day. He asked Namjoon where he got it, and he stuttered, to which Jackson paid no mind, not at first.

“I tried to cut an onion,” he explained, looking at it. His voice was low, grave. “I didn’t have any health insurance back then, so… this is why it looks like this.”

“Why? Weren’t you here?” Jackson asked, kissing it, expecting his usual, playful retreat he defended himself with whenever he felt that tingling sensation inside his belly, too ticklish to stand it.

“I was away.”

But there was no reaction, just that low voice, hooded eyes, lost somewhere far away from here.

And he just nodded as a response, silently, seeing the scar on the skin, pale pink. It looked as if it was made by unprofessional hands, that was true, and it also looked as if it was the result of something that had happened years, years ago.

He kissed it one, two times, and when he kissed it a third time, he saw it.

He had this longing stare on his eyes, a semi-pout on his lips and a brooding aura; and Jackson despised everything, all of it, since he had never seen him like that.

He got scared. It seemed as if a giant weight had just found its way in the middle of the bed they shared,   
_ /////// it was always his ///////  
_ pushing him away, away, away, so far away he had no other option but to get up, not having a reason to stay in bed anymore, since Namjoon was unresponsive, distracted, absent; too gone to pay attention to him.

Jackson came to a resolution that day.

He didn’t want to know anything about that scar or about his past, if it meant he’d disappear right in front of his eyes every time they spoke about it.

Jackson made circles around his past from that day on.

He didn’t ask questions and never brought the topic again since Namjoon’s past wasn’t a thing he could act on, nor something he’d love to explore, too weak, too jealous to every detail inside his life that didn’t point at him nor the lapse of time in which they met.

He chose to focus on their future, instead—

_ /////// but we never had one, Love; we stood no chance to whatever was coming our way /////// _

Jackson stomps the cigarette butt on the porch of his house, his hands too busy dialing that number again.

_ If only you’d let me explain/////// _

“We should order something for dinner or go out,” Namjoon proposes, placing their empty, sticky plates inside the sink. He seems unbothered by the way they pile up on top of dirty mugs and stained cups he won’t clean until they tower up so high he’s forced to do them without any excuse. “What would you want to eat? We could try a Korean place I haven’t had the chance to go to.”

Namjoon searches through his phone, trying to locate the place he’s seen while he drives home every day, and walks aimlessly to the small table behind Jin.

Seokjin, his eyes following the trail he left in the kitchen, the dirty dishes, the stickiness that will make them hard to wash later on, and when he no longer sees him, his body is sitting up and walking towards the sink, thinking the least he can do for him is to clean them. All of them. He doesn’t mind, not when he was always the one designated to do the dishes back in South Korea.

So he does. He pulls up his sleeves and opens the faucet, barely noticing his sleeves are coming down again, grabbing a plate with his left hand and the sponge with the right, lifting them mid-air to keep the fabric down (or up?), trying to keep Namjoon’s sweater as dry as possible.

“What are you doing?”

And it just slips.

His fingers go livid, then rigid, as his sight gets stuck on the pieces of porcelain crashing over the rest of the plates, mugs, cups. He sees his right hand, full of soap, and the left one, already trying to retrieve every fragment of porcelain he just broke,  
_ (i’m sorry it slipped i’m sorry it just slipped i swear)  
_ convinced he’ll hurt more if he doesn’t get them out in time.

“Careful!” Namjoon groans, grabbing both of his hands away from the sink. “You’re going to injure yourself, dummy. Here, take this.”

Namjoon extends a towel to his soapy hands, looking at the sink to see the mess he just made.

“We’ll get them out later,” he concludes, turning to see him. “Are you hurt?”

Seokjin would like to tell him he is.

He would very much like to tell him the truth.

He would love to tell him everything he’s gone through for the last ten years, to explain the lonely nights in which the only thing he held onto was his childhood memories, his teenage days and daydreams, and that summer   
_ (do you remember, namjoon-ah? do you hold on to that too in your bad days? to how) _ _  
_ they swore many things and shared many precious moments and had days to fill a whole life with happiness.   
  
He would love to hold his hands the same way he’s doing so; to tell him no, he’s not hurt, not physically, not by porcelain but by his own hands every day, by the ghost of the hands that hurt him in the first place, acting on him as if he were a puppet, something he thought would end once he was miles and miles away from there, all across the other side of the world,   
_ (but is it? is it the other side of the world? is it enough distance for me to be)  
_ hidden from the monster he lived with.

Hidden from the monster he lov—

**_(no)_ **

He can’t. He’s not strong enough to tell him he’s hiding, not visiting; that he’s short of money, so he really can’t go out as he pleases, nor has the energy to do so, wanting only one thing right now, which is sleep. Eat. Sleep again. Maybe cry in between all that, if it isn’t much to ask. Then laying down, lulling himself with the sound of his breathing, avoiding bad dreams at all cost and holding onto good memories, after a long, hot shower; then sleep, again, until he heals.

For he’s hurt.  _ But not physically, _ he’d love to explain, if only—

**_(i can’t)_ **

If only he had enough time, enough guts not to break down, not to cry every damn moment he goes through the details of the relationship that fucked him up in ways he can’t even explain to himself, he would—

**_(i don’t)_ **

If only he had the words, he—

“I’m not.”

“Ah, thank goodness,” Namjoon smiles, drying both of his hands using the fabric against them; it’s kinda rough, and it tickles him, which helps him ground himself. “Don’t do any kind of chore, Jin,” he asks. “You’re my guest.”

Seokjin sees him take his phone again, still looking for that Korean restaurant he suggested. “Can we stay here?”

Namjoon lifts his eyes from his phone. “Don’t feel like going out, hm?”

“Not really.”

“We’ll order something, then,” he nods. “It’s on me, and I don’t want a no for an answer.”

Seokjin tugs the piece of fabric between his hands, and this must be the most loyal representation to how his insides feel, seeing him sitting on his table, ordering his favorite food (probably from memory), prompting a question inside his mind that will repeat itself   
_ (why) _ _  
_ even after their meals arrive, a question, always late to arrive, hitting him in the face as soon as he’s gone through all his memories, reminding him   
_ (why did we surrender so easily to) _   
the bittersweetness that never really left his body that one day.

The day it all ended.

He’s sure, though, that question prompted the same tug inside his chest the night he decided to run away with money borrowed from his brother, worrying him and his mother sick to the stomach, acting without thinking, turning to pull the last thread of survival he had in him. Dialing Namjoon’s phone from memory, murmuring prayers on a loop for his phone number to be the same even after ten years, the sound of his call getting through being the only thing that made him stay composed, not minding at all the huge difference between their time zones.

And now he’s here. Walking slowly to the bathroom on the second floor, seeing Monie coming down the stairs and tangling himself with his legs; and it makes him laugh a little— Monie has that impact on him, which he’s learning to love already— but he halts himself there, too.

“Thank you,” he whispers incompletely, his voice cracking a little at the end.

Namjoon doesn’t hear him. He’s too into the food delivery app, he pays no attention at the way Seokjin’s shoulders curve downwards, his tall figure reduced to one much smaller than he really is, his feet walking up the stairs quietly, careful not to make any sound.

His mind, though, as loud as it is on any bad day, hammers down his soul with words that hurt, words that made his skin rip in two like a ripe fruit— the haunting colors of them fill his sight, still so clear to him; he doesn’t need to dream it again, the beatings, the curses, for he remembers that and everything else so vividly.

And he wishes he could pray again; pray for something to ground him, to make him feel a bit better, less of a half-assed attempt of a man, or whichever insult he engraved on his forehead for him to read every fucking time he looks at himself through a mirror.   
If only Seokjin knew the right words to do so…

As he steps into the shower, reminding himself every five seconds not to take too long, he slips into a state of consciousness in which he pretends the drops of water falling on him and his surroundings are clean enough to erase bad feelings, emotions, sensations, and thoughts from his mind and body—   
  
_ (could it have made any difference) _ _  
  
_ Well, not every thought, at least not the ones directed to the man sitting on the first floor, breathing and living outside of his memory, so distant and so different from the one he has living inside his mind,   
_ (if we had stayed in touch, could it have worked) _ _  
_ and still finding ways to spark something inside of him, something he’s unaware of, too distracted and yet so focused on every piece of hell he’s been dragging all along;   
_ (could we had kept our love intact if we did)  
_ _ something _ that makes him instantly forget the pain he’s feeling, albeit for minutes whilst he showers, swimming back to a state of calmness instead of his usual state of being on the verge of another panic attack, and it’s all thanks to—   


_ (i)  
_

Seokjin closes his eyes   
_ (i think we could’ve made it work) _ _  
_ and he doesn’t notice, how his lips curve upwards for a mere instant, for he brings his soapy hands to his face and washes it thoroughly, washing away any trace of tears, sadness, or ghostly, haunting fingers that once caused nothing but pain there.

Water.

All Wheein sees is water. Water filling her lungs, muffling her senses, clouding her sight. Water is all that runs inside her body, from the thinnest blood vessel to the thicker ones, the ones directly connected to her heart. Water is what she feels over her head, hitting her scalp and her hair and her shoulders, wetting her blouse and jeans. And water is what runs down her cheeks, salty water, actually, when she spots them.

Her heart twists inside her chest; and it’s only natural, the way it breaks, as she approaches the small spot of grass in which they’re located.

The tallest of them turns at the sound of her steps on the grass, but the figure sitting beside her, a curled-up human figure with both hands on her face, doesn’t even flinch.

“You must be her roommate,” she offers a hand, which Wheein takes and shakes. “I’m Byulyi.”

She nods, knowing she’ll remember. She’s good at remembering faces and names, although the darkness here isn’t helping much. She just needs a moment to associate her voice and her face, and it’ll stick to his brain like gum. “Wheein.”

“Her car is at the police station,” Byulyi explains. “Hye…”

“I’ll take it from here,” Wheein nods again, her voice solid, as solid as she can fake it. “Thank you, officer.”

Byulyi cracks a little smile. “I’m not on duty,” she murmurs, looking at her feet. Wheein sees a little shame afterwards, washing up every trace of smile she showed. “I’m just a friend doing what friends do.”

Wheein smiles, trying to keep her head still. She thinks she’s nodding a lot, and that can only mean she’s nervous.

She’s not ready to crack. Not in front of a total stranger.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t hesitate to call me if she needs anything,” Byulyi looks straight into her eyes, and it’s only now Wheein notices the purple of her hair, the dark circles under her lower eyelashes, the scent of nicotine impregnated to her clothes brought to her by the draught of the river, reminding Wheein of the long night they just had. “I’ll be at the station.”

She has no time to answer, but to see her trotting her way up to the parking lot near here, where she has her own car parked, too. Wheein figures Byulyi won’t sleep today, thinking maybe her shift is about to begin, as she realizes she and Hyejin may be meeting the same fate in the near future… 

_ I knew it was going to be a long night. But how long is it going to be? _

Wheein looks down to her friend, struggling to reach her, thinking she must be close to becoming a ball of raw feelings and anxieties, not knowing how to reach her. She ponders if she should reach Hyejin by touching her on the head, a shoulder, maybe her whole body with a tight, warm hug.

But she stands there instead, not knowing what to do to help the person she cares for the most; she’s helpless, not knowing what she’s to do to mend whatever is meant to be mended, to reach her in ways she knows are impossible without stepping over the line… 

“Whee?”

It’s not a whisper. It’s the beginning of a plea, of a cry, of a cursing sentence she’ll break at once she hears it.

_ And I’ll never be ready. I’ll never be ready to see you crumble. But— _

“I’m here.”

Then it’s all silence around them; they’re nothing but deaf ears to their surroundings, to the passing people walking near them, to the now soft drizzle falling upon them or the cars passing by the bridge, or Seoul’s night sounds resonating far away from here; and as silence itself usually finds joy in filling up spaces moments before an explosion, a yell, a heartbreak, it wraps them tightly in its embrace, leaving them with no words, no noise, no cries, until…

The descent through the downward spiral of bad news begins with a light show. Multi-colored lights and water come to life in front of Wheein’s eyes, going up and down from Banpo Bridge, coloring her cheeks with rainbows, hues of purple, pink, red, then white, colors that embed themselves into the back of her eyes forever, giving her a visual reference to this moment, a moment she knows she’ll learn to hate, for it is one of—

“Did Byul tell you?”

She looks down and sees her friend, her black hair momentarily catching up with the colors of the show.

“Not everything. Just that you’d found the kid. Is she…?”

“She’s fine.”

“Then what…?”

Silence. Silence constricting her airways with fear, nervousness, anxiety.

Then it’s broken by Hyejin’s uncontrollable sobs, and that’s all that it takes for Wheein’s soul to rip itself in half, prompting her whole weight to drop to her knees, holding Hyejin tight between her arms, leading her to cry her lungs out with all the strength she holds once she feels the support of her roommate’s arms.

She hates it. She hates that sound. The heartbreaking notes coming from her throat, her precious tears, the way her chest comes up and down and how it struggles to maintain a rhythm; she hates it, she’d do anything to stop it if she could—

Wheein’s cheek is glued to her nape, her body line curved to hug her body frame entirely; her hair falls over Hyejin’s head, hidden between her own knees and chest until she can’t breathe, gasping for air as hard as the angst inside her chest allows her to.

She drags air out of everything she can get hold of, straightening herself, feeling her hair being combed to her sides and back by Wheein’s hands, who is quick to go around her body, sitting on the balls of her feet and in front of her.

Hyejin sees the worry on her roommate’s face but she also sees the colors around her head, a halo made of her favorite colors crowning the head of her favorite person in the world, and it pushes her to say out loud what seems to her like the beginning of a never-ending nightmare.

“Her mother was arrested.”

Wheein’s throat goes dry. “What…”

“Her attorney…” she begins, clearing hers. She shakes her head, not knowing how to continue. Her upper lip is sticky with tears, snot, and spit, but she couldn’t care less. “They had it. They had everything lined up to win, Whee. Everything.”

Wheein stills. She’s aware of the details, but not of every one of them; Byulyi had told her over the phone, minutes prior to her arrival, a few things that could settle some context for her to help Hyejin. And even so, Wheein was yet to figure out every legal thing her best friend explained to her, how much it could affect a person’s life, especially when that person in particular had no more than six years walking on Earth.

Wheein knew Hyejin’s work was not easy. She had in mind that being a social worker often took more from her life than just the time, effort and presence it usually requested day by day; it took an emotional toll on the daily, a toll she saw and lived firsthand, be it the struggle of stumbling upon cases and cases of domestic violence, child abuse, poverty, depression, homelessness… or be it the happening of an act of injustice in which social workers couldn’t do anything to help. They couldn’t discriminate nor judge a case and act about it; they were just to observe, question, take notes and report; they were to follow cases until there was no trail left to follow; to be there in the battlefield, just looking, never interceding, and that… 

_ That’s hell, Whee. Not being able to speak nor act on behalf of others when all you want to do is help. _

Wheein never thought of becoming a social worker. She loved kids, and she became a kindergarten teacher for the sake of it; she was aware, even from her first day, of the environment in which most of the Korean children developed (or had an estimation, at least), and the overview was good, most of the times… except when it wasn’t. Every once in a while, when a student became a target of issues in which her friend, the social worker, worked on, she’d find her gut not to be too strong for it. She often found herself wanting to do more than just a few calls, more than just the daily observation of the physical decadence of a kid, the signs too obvious to ignore… 

_ I would’ve loved to be a lawyer instead,  _ they had joked before…

Until they couldn’t anymore.

“He wasn’t ready,” Hyejin clenches her fists with anger. “You should’ve seen him. He was stuttering, sweating; his eyes… he was  _ so _ out of place, I had to refrain myself from going up there and slapping his face until he came to his own mind.”

Her friend smiles, sadly. “But you didn’t.”

“Of course not,” Hyejin manages to drag her mouth upwards from one side, but the faintness of her smile dies as soon as she sighs.

_ Because we can’t do shit. _

“He was not ready, Whee. He should’ve asked the judge to reschedule the first trial’s date; maybe postpone it for a few hours, faking sickness, or telling him the truth.”

“But he didn’t.”

“He fucking didn’t,” Hyejing shakes her head.

Wheein marvels for a millisecond at the way the orange lights light her face, too sad and yet too beautiful, damning her memory, knowing she’ll always remember these colors, this pain, this beauty on her face.

“He went all-in with god knows what inside his fucking head, he clowned himself— he clowned Dajeong’s mother in front of the judge, the jury members,  _ him.” _ Wheein pictures the lawyer, although she doesn’t know him. She pictures a man trying to get ahold of a situation he didn’t have control of. She pictures a man, too lost inside his own issues, trying to reach out to others, failing completely.

Hyejin takes both of her hands to her face, rubbing her eyes anxiously, full of frustration, as if trying to get rid of the tears, the memory of the trial, the whole day, without any use.

“You should’ve seen her.”

“Dajeong was there?” Wheein asks loudly, her heart too heavy at the picture of a small kid in the middle of a court full of adults, her ears pierced with strange words, not able to avoid the messy feelings amidst all the people, their stares, their presence. “She shouldn’t have been…”

“He put her there,” Hyejin cuts her, blaming the man. “He must’ve thought…”

“Something really stupid, I can only imagine,” Wheein retorts, lost in the image of Dajeong sitting on a chair too big for her, too scared, too  _ small. _ “But how…?”

“He must’ve thought it could help her case,” Hyejin lowers her head, sinking it in the middle of her shoulders. She anchors her sight to Wheein’s chin, though, finding some kind of refuge there, on a familiar face, on her two kind eyes, holding her even at this small distance that keeps them apart. “Bringing her in could’ve helped, Whee, even _ I  _ know that. But he…”

“He was a mess.”

“A fucking mess,” Hyejing repeats as she closes her eyes, tears falling from her eyes. She doesn’t try to fight them back, too angry, too sad to come up with new sentences, repeating almost everything, word by word, she told Byulyi. “And then it all ended.”

Wheein pales, opening both her mouth and eyes. “Ended?”

“We were outside of the court when we heard Dajeong’s mother screaming her name,” Hyejin looks at her, disheartened. “She was nowhere to be found. Nor him.”

“Her father?” Wheein croaks, fear sneaking into her body through the smallest cracks of her soul.

Hyejin shakes her head.

“Her lawyer,” she explains. “He left at the same time Dajeong’s father did, as soon as it all ended. As far as we know, the father went back home; but the lawyer was nowhere to be found. He wasn’t there when the cops tried to calm down Dajeong’s mother, and he wasn’t there when they charged her for disturbing the public order.”

Wheein covers her mouth with her hand.

“Please tell me he came back.”

Hyejin’s face distorts into pure anger and angst.

_ And this is not even her case,  _ Byulyi’s voice resonates inside her head.  _ She got involved in it by her own means, by pure luck, maybe? _

_ She’s like a magnet to all this,  _ Wheein thinks.  _ It’s not the first time this happens. _

And still…

“He did, didn’t he?”

Hyejin shakes Wheein’s world worse than an earthquake with every shake of her head, tugging her heart out of her chest with such force, Wheein can only imagine the amount of fear, pain and regret Hyejin feels.

“She’s gonna lose the trial,” Hyejin cries out, covering her mouth with her hands. “She’s gonna lose Dajeong.”

Wheein stills, seeing Hyejin wiping the tears from his eyes with her own sleeves, never minding the smudged mascara she leaves on them.

She sees her collect her breath, not needing to add anything more, and yet, she does. She needs to hear it, too, since she’s involved, too involved, in what’s to come.

“The verdict will be given to them this afternoon,” she sentences.

Wheein’s heart stops, then starts beating again, this time throbbing against her ribs with a force she never knew she could feel.

“But there’s a chance, right?” Wheein almost begs, reaching for Hyejin’s hands. “There’s a chance everything can be fixed.”

Hyejin’s face breaks, her mouth curving downwards followed by her eyes, as she melts in her own crying as a final answer to everything.

Wheein’s chest hurts as if stabbed at the sight of the most precious thing in this world breaking in front of her, falling apart,  _ hurting.  _ For she’s nothing but love. Nothing else but a person full of love and a passion for justice; Wheein had concluded years ago it was only fair for her to give back to Hyejin everything she gives, hands full, to the world. She’s wished in the past (mostly on birthdays), for the world to have a candle burning just for her in every corner, so she’s never to meet dark paths; she’s dreamt before tons of scenarios in which she’s happy every damn day of her life—

“We let her down.”

“Hye, don’t say that—”

“We did,” Hyejin spits, eyes full of anger. “We let her down. We failed her.”

Wheein hates it, how the world manages to sneak up to Hyejin’s nerves, to her temper, to every weakness she’s careful not to show. She loathes how down she’s let down every time she decides to give life a second chance.

_ And I can’t do anything,  _ Wheein thinks, holding her hands a bit tighter,  _ but this. _

“You didn’t,” she whispers, her hands flying to cup her face. “Let’s go home, Hye—”

“No,” Hyejin shakes her head, repeating the negative once again. “No, I don’t wanna go home. I can’t go home.”

Everything inside Wheein’s body twists a little more. Her stomach, the muscles of her calves in which she’s sitting, her knees, her mind, her heart.

“Hyejin—”

“I c-can’t go home,” she repeats, sobbing, trying to hide her face inside one of Wheein’s hands. “I can’t.”

“Hyejin, listen to m—”

“How can I go home?” Hyejin lifts her eyes, clasping Wheein’s hands with hers. “I let her down. I failed her.”

“You didn’t, Hye—”

“How can you be so sure?”

She can’t. That’s the truth. The ugliest and the most real she has, and she’d give away anything to paint it any color just for her to have some hope, but she can’t.

“I know your heart,” Wheein whispers, tears falling from her eyes too. “You did everything you could.”

“Clearly it was not enough.”

“It’ll never be enough,” Wheein presses her forehead to hers’. “This is  _ too _ big, Hye; it was about time the case outweighed itself, not to say every single person implied in it.  _ That _ I know.”

A cold draught of air surrounds them, lifting the hems of their blouses, their sleeves.

Shivering, Hyejin sighs.

“Let’s go home.”

“I don’t want to go home,” Hyejin repeats softly, still crying, not wanting to let go of the guilt she’s feeling. “How am I supposed to go home, knowing she’ll never go back to hers?”

Wheein doesn’t answer, she just leans to hug her, breaking in tears at the same moment Hyejin breaks down too, holding her head and face against her chest.

She wants to tell her they will figure something out. That time will fix everything as it always does, even though she knows time is unpredictable. That Dajeong’s mother’s lawyer will come back, although she doesn’t know him at all, nor knows his intention, his purpose, of running away at the worst moment in which a family needed him the most.

Wheein wants to reassure her she’ll find a way to help her, and Dajeong’s case, and that she’ll put her whole soul into finding ways to fix all this; she’d love to tell her it’ll be alright, but she’s not a liar and she knows deep, deep down, that she doesn’t have the gut for any of this, just to love her, and support her, and offer her a set of arms to cry on, but she’s too lost for words, too gone and afraid, she says nothing.

Silence implodes inside them, leading their eyes to bleed multicolored tears they will remember forever.

Their tears are pink, purple, red, orange, white… until they’re not anymore; the light show ends at some point just before dawn, and their tears hold no color when it breaks in front of their eyes, their faces too cold and humid from a night out by the Han, lit up by the sun coming up slowly, bathing their senses in into a new day, slowly waking them up from their restless, numb slumber.

Only then they get up, tightly linked by their hands, leaving the river that witnessed their grief.

They have no plans, just heavy hearts, and they hope that’s all it takes to fix this.

If they ever have a chance, of course.

“So?”

Seokjin opens his eyes, looking at the man sitting in front of him. His brow, arched, questions him.

“How is it?”

He smiles.

It feels like home. The spiciness of the chicken, the way it swells his lips and the inner walls of his mouth, including his tongue; the scent and taste of scallions against his palate, the little spices, crushed to enrich the flavor of the dish, he can actually feel every single detail of this dish dancing inside his mouth and belly.

“It’s good,” Seokjin nods, grabbing another portion with his chopsticks. “It tastes really good.”

Namjoon lets out his breath, which makes Seokjin smile back. “I think so too. I’m full.”

He nods, listening, but he’s distracted by the taste of the food; a part of his body— he figures it’s his brain, starved from the day he left South Korea to this day— feels content, relaxed, at ease. It feels strong, even, something he’s not accustomed to.

“I used to do the cooking at home,” Seokjin murmurs, chewing; he doesn’t think, it just slips out from his mouth, his belly too stunned by all the feeding from hours earlier and now. He points at his bowl, soon to be empty, and talks carefully not to spit the contents in his mouth. “This is not hard to make; it’s my brother’s favorite, actually.”

Namjoon sits straight on his side of the table and leans a little bit forwards. “You know how to cook this?”

His eyes give away an eagerness Seokjin has seen before.

“I’m not an excellent chef, but I think my cooking skills got better,” Seokjin leaves his bowl on the table, grabbing a napkin and cleaning the corners of his mouth. His lips are tender and they hurt a little when he wipes them. “And I think I can do it. As long as I have fresh ingredients, of course.”

Namjoon claps both of his hands together, smiling. “I’ll get them. I’ll get the ingredients and we’ll cook something good next week, what do you think?”

Seokjin doesn’t know what to say since this is a sensitive topic— money, food, plans—, but when he feels a sting coming from his lips and finds out he’s chewing them when he’s supposed to leave them untouched, he feels his time is up.

Lost for words, he opens his mouth. “I…”

“I could assist you,” Namjoon offers, his eyes just like a puppy’s, worried, attentive. “I can help you with the cleaning, yeah? You’ll do all the cooking, alright, but I could help with something,” he insists, although not much needed, since Seokjin isn’t saying a word, “maybe cutting vegetables—”

“No way!” Namjoon falls silent. Seokjin’s eyes, opened wide, look at him with something close to fear. When he speaks again, his voice is low, almost a murmur. “I’m sorry, I—”

“You haven’t forgotten, eh?” Namjoon smirks, although a bit ashamed.

“The onion incident,” they both say at the same time, locking his eyes for a second.

“How could I ever forget,” Seokjin scoffs, a shiver running down his spine, closing his eyes. “You were bleeding and had no insurance, and I didn’t—”

“But in the end it was nothing.”

“We had no way of knowing that,” Seokjin counters, his pinky finger pointing at him. “You were bleeding, your grandparents had no idea, and I had to ride your bicycle to the bus station, looking for god knows  _ what.” _

Namjoon rests his back against his chair, a hand trying to hide his eyes and mouth behind every finger, already laughing. “I’m sorry.”

“I was sorry too,” Seokjin says, words coming out of his mouth one after one, no restraints. “Let me see your hand.”

And even though he complies, Namjoon is quick to talk.

“It’s still there,” he sighs, reaching his arm to him, the palm of his hand facing upwards. “I didn’t know stitches hurt like hell.”

“They usually don’t,” Seokjin looks at him, frowning, then his eyes follow the trace of a small like on Namjoon’s palm. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do a better job.”

“You did good,” Namjoon shrugs slowly, careful not to remove his hand from his’. “I always thought so. I still do.”

Seokjin scoffs again, too lost in the mental image of his friends’ hand bleeding, the way he called him from outside his grandparents’ shop to ask him for help without wanting to worry them, making him almost faint in the spot at the sight of the deep cut he had accidentally done to himself with a chef’s knife.

It all comes to him without much effort: he remembers his lack of nerve, the way his hands trembled as he intended to stitch him up with whatever medical equipment they had bought at a random pharmacy; how they sat on a bench behind some bushes, a pool of alcohol forming underneath the soles of their shoes when he disinfected Namjoon’s hand, and the whimpers and moans of pain he had to bite back against his other hand, eyes tearing up every time Seokjin introduced the small needle in his palm.

“I’m glad I didn’t kill you,” he whispers, his index stroking the pink scar. “You could’ve caught an infection.”

“But I didn’t,” Namjoon counters this time, looking directly at him.

Seokjin closes his eyes, pressing his palm against Namjoon’s.

“You were not to touch anything from the kitchen if I was away,” he repeats just like he did ten years before, and the reminiscence of his words, of his past self— lost somewhere along the way— shuts his smile off.

Seokjin opens his eyes, looking directly at the pair of eyes in front of him.

“You promised.”

Namjoon opens his mouth   
_ (you promised) _ _  
_ to protest, but   
_ (you promised many things)  
_ the doorbell rings.

Seokjin lets go of his hand, snapping back on his chair, dragging the wood against the floor with a screech. It only takes an instant for Seokjin’s body to tense, his mind rushing into to a place he despises but knows so well, hurried there by the guilt of having been so close to Namjoon moments ago; the smooth surface of his hand, the shape of it and the way it allowed him to hold it, it all begins to faint under all the shitstorm inside his mind, dissolving the soft, warm palm of Namjoon, transforming it into another hand in an instant. 

He’s left remembering every dream he’s had so far in seconds,   
_ (his hands weren’t smooth, they hurt) _   
the fact that he’s been away for several days now,    
_ (and he’s looking for me i know he is probably wondering about) _ _  
_ the amount of nerve he took to get away from him and the way he knows he always gets what he wants   
_ (why wouldn’t he if he’s always gotten everything) _ _  
_ whenever he wants, and   
_ (he’s here) _ _  
_ Seokjin freezes.

Although puzzled by his reaction, Namjoon gets up and walks to the door, mouthing out loud he’s not expecting any visits.

“Don’t open it.”

**_(he’s here)_ **

He doesn’t hear himself when he says it, but Namjoon hears him loud and clear.

When he turns around, he’s nothing but put off at the way Seokjin is shaking, as if he were on the verge of tears.

Namjoon is in the middle of opening his mouth when the doorbell rings again.

“What—”

“Please don’t open it.”

This time is a whisper, but he still hears it.

Namjoon turns completely to see face him.

“What’s going on?”

_ (i’d love to tell you but _ **_i don’t even know)_ **

Seokjin gets up from his chair and tries to still his shoulders, his core. “I—”

The doorbell rings again. A little tornado comes down the stairs, barking and howling, spiking up   
**_(i need to get out)_ ** _  
_ Seokjin’s fear.

Against every urge he has to hide, to run away, to leave the country or the planet, to stop existing at this very moment, the only way out he sees is the glass backdoor. He’s quick to slide it open, getting out to the enclosed space that is Namjoon’s garden.

He looks at it, having climbed down the stone steps, and notices the tended lawn with few bald spots here and there, feeling the coolness of the earth between his toes.

Seokjin is fast to spot a small place between a dead rose bush and a hole in the ground, probably dug by Monie.

He sits there, against the wood of the panels that keep Namjoon’s garden safe from the sight of his neighbors, and waits.

Seokjin closes his eyes, hugs his legs,   
_ (if i wait here long enough maybe he’ll leave) _ _  
_ and waits.

He just waits for it— everything— to be over soon.

The images in his mind, the way he’ll burst into Namjoon’s house, breaking it all, taking Seokjin’s soulless body back home with him, fill his head with something similar to static, freezing him on the spot, wishing

_ /////// _

Namjoon dismisses them fast, not minding even a bit if he’s being rude to the people delivering him the result of the first life-changing decision he made a week ago, but once they’re gone and he’s left with a huge mattress in the middle of the living room, he realizes this is not the only thing inside his house he’s to make some adjustments for.

As he walks towards the place he knows Jin is, he stops to see the flowers he bought, bent, urging him to run with them to the sink to aid them with water, forcing him to grab them, knowing they’ll start to wither soon, their need of water so imperative he almost forgets he’s in the middle of something much more important.

_ Jin. _

His hands drop the cellophane that wraps them together, hardly bouncing against the cushion of the sofa. His feet are fast to reach the glass window, from where he peeks his head out; his eyes travel throughout the three wooden walls that enclose his garden, his soul growing uncomfortable at the sight of greens, browns, and yellows, but not at the sight of the lilacs and greys Jin is wearing.

His feet walk slowly to the edge of the stone floor, its coldness hitting his bare skin with a yearning he’s yet to figure out, and then he spots him.

Monie is in front of him, laying down inside a small hole he must’ve dug somewhere in the middle of the delivery, and the animal turns his head as soon as he senses him, making him Jin lift his face at him, two red spots blushing his cheeks, probably the spot in which he used his fists to support his head.

Namjoon smiles.

“I didn’t know my garden grew flowers like you,” he observes, stepping down the stone steps and sitting on them, in front of Jin, reducing the distance between them by just six footsteps.

His toes tread the grass and its smoothness slowly, taking in the freshness of the earth, unbothered by the way it tickles against his skin.

Jin looks at him, his pupils still a bit shaky, and it happens at the same time: both he and Monie tilt their heads.

Namjoon lets out a dry, yet warm cackle, and nods. “Monies and Jins… who would’ve thought.”

It’s minimal, the way Jin smiles at his joke, having two or three heartstrings tugged by his bad joke— his favorites—, but he doesn’t move, he just opens his mouth to say something, closing it right after, as if changing his mind.

Namjoon looks at him, shifting his mood to a more serious one. “Are you okay?”

Against all odds, against being so sure of what he’s going to answer, Namjoon is surprised when he sees Jin shaking his head as a negative.

He’s never been a pusher, though. He’s always been the kind of person that lets people fly at their own pace, with their own wings, guided only by their own desire. Not more, nor less.

“Do you feel like talking about it?”

Jin, who had his back resting against the wooden panel when Namjoon found him, leans forward. He hesitates, and Namjoon can almost see the tongue twister on his furrowed brow, picturing there’s something inside that’s fighting with all its force to come out, but the only thing he manages to do is to scratch Monie’s head, directing his fingers to the back of his ears, brushing his fur with them, massaging his skin, so tender, hidden under all that whiteness.

_ Hidden. Like him. _

Monie closes his eyes, enjoying the kind of love he lives for, and opens his mouth, letting his tongue slip out of it sloppily.

“Not really,” Jin whispers, still scratching Monie’s fur.

Namjoon zeroes-in on his hands, gulping hard.

“Do you want to call it a day?” he asks, also whispering.

Their eyes meet slowly, so slowly, they can’t find reasons to look away when they realize they’ve been staring at each other for minutes, clouds thickening slowly over their heads, a direct threat to their already chilled bodies.

Jin is the one to break their eye contact, realizing, too, it’s getting late.

“Sure.”

With his body bent forwards after pushing the mattress against the corner of the living room, where a sofa aligns perfectly with it, saving him the bother of getting a new pair of pillows, Namjoon finds himself calm, collected. Even happy. He’s sure the cushions will do just fine, and the bookcases on this floor will help him get ahead some readings he’s still yet to finish. In whichever way he looks at it, this is an upgrade of all sorts.

He didn’t expect the mattress to arrive now, in the middle of Jin’s visit, but it’s not like he expected him, either, so the only logical thing to do is to adjust.

He likes the way a mattress looks in the middle of the living room, anyways. The place looks like a perfect refuge for a literature teacher stuck in the middle of midterms, and he wonders if his students would even think of this scenario.

Namjoon shrugs. It may look kind of weird since the mattress itself is too big— even bigger than his whole body—, but he guesses he’ll grow into him with no time.

Besides, he can’t wait to rest his back against it.

_ God, it must feel like heaven; to finally get some rest— _

“You didn’t have to.”

Namjoon looks back at him, not sure if having heard him right.

Jin stands in the middle of the imaginary border between the living room and the kitchen, staring at the mattress with eyes that won’t blink.

“What?” 

“The mattress,” Jin points; again, the only thing showing under the sleeves of his sweater is his pinky. “I’m only visiting. If this is about me hoarding your space or your room you don’t have to worry,” he explains, his voice more muffled than the lowest murmur Namjoon has ever heard coming from his mouth, “I’ll give you back your bed in a week or less, Namjoon-ah. You didn’t have to.”

Namjoon’s body straightens itself up without even having time to think.

And he sees it. The way he chews his lips on the regular, ripping small pieces of skin from it; the faint, almost unnoticeable hollowness under his cheekbones; the way his fingers curve—

_ A week? _

“No,” he smiles, nervously, shaking his head. “You must be confused. I bought this a week ago, Jin—”

“I’ll get my things ready. You can have your bed back,” he keeps saying, still on that mumbling mood Namjoon is beginning to worry about; he’s turning and walking upstairs when Namjoon stops him, grabbing him by the arm. He does it softly, his hand merely grasping the whole circumference of Jin’s forearm, but he can feel how Jin tenses.

_ Why is he— _

“Stop,” Namjoon asks, his voice mixed with something close to fear. Jin looks at him. He sees his small nose, his eyelids, the way his round face ends in a smooth angle he stares at until his gaze drops to the hand grasping his arm so softly, Namjoon lets it go when he realizes Jin is not going anywhere. “Why would I think  _ that?” _

“You don’t think I’m taking up your space?” his lips mutter, giving up, knowing he’ll never find the courage to look at his eyes.

“I don’t,” Namjoon answers, and his hands hesitate at first, but they end up touching his fingertips, half of them hidden by the sweater paw he gets by the length of the sweater. “I told you it was okay, hm? To come here. When you called.”

Jin nods, an “oh” escaping from his lips, so plump and a bit swollen, still, by the dinner they had.

“Oh,” Jin laughs, smiling. “I thought this was for me.”

Namjoon looks at him, seeing him move and take a step back as if a switch had instantly turned on again inside of his body, and he doesn’t know why, not exactly, but he doesn’t buy it.

This act. He doesn’t buy it.

_ He’s hiding something. _

“I thought…” Jin shoots a palm to his forehead, smacking it softly. “I thought you were asking me to leave,” he laughs, wrinkles appearing on the sides of his eyes. Namjoon doesn’t find it funny, but manages to drag the corners of his lips upwards. “I’m sorry. As you may recall, I am kinda dumb and slow when it comes to understanding stuff; I guess you’ll have to deal with tha—”

“Don’t say that.”

The way he looks at him cuts his soul in half, Namjoon is sure; he notices how he pales momentarily, locking his eyes with his.

“Don’t say that,” he repeats. When he sees Jin is about to dismiss what he just said, maybe tell a joke to slip away from the topic, Namjoon cuts him off. “I want to make something clear.”

Jin remains silent, but Namjoon notices how he gulps.

“Every so often things will slip out of my mind and I’ll forget to tell you about the daily things I do. I should’ve told you about the mattress. It’s just…” Namjoon scratches his head, kind of embarrassed by all the seriousness, by the way Jin looks at him, his whole attention put there, on the spot he’s standing, talking, explaining.

Jin’s silence, his two piercing eyes and the way he holds his hands together, two sweater paws linked nervously together, it all unsettles him.

“I’m used to living alone,” Namjoon explains. “I… went through some stuff,” he clears his throat, “and bought this for my back. That’s it.”

The motion he makes towards the mattress gets lost somewhere along with his explanation, feeling his face burning hot with every word he drops, joined by his voice, merely a whisper by the time he finishes explaining.

“It has nothing to do with you visiting, your presence, or my space,” he reassures him, just to fall silent once again.

Jin’s nods begin with a warily shake, Namjoon notices, but as he continues bobbing his head to and fro, he feels more at ease.

“It’s okay not to understand things at first. Happens to the best of us,” he smiles awkwardly but feels less stupid when he sees Jin’s lips drawing a little smile. “Don’t say that,” he almost begs, refraining his tone just to let the words out without paying them much thought. “You know you’re brilliant. Stop that  _ ‘I’m dumb and slow’ _ nonsense, ‘cause you’re not.”

And maybe he’s talking to himself, he’ll never know, but a part of him feels he is, and it makes him cringe himself away from the conversation after pressing Jin’s fingertips against his hand, directing himself to the kitchen.

He grabs a clean cup from the pantry, finding them now way more easily than he would’ve found them weeks ago, and pours water in it from the tap in the sink.

As he swallows it, so sure the knot in his throat will go away, he realizes he’s shaking.

Namjoon pours more water on his cup and drinks it bottoms up, desperately trying to get rid of the opened wound in his chest that won’t stop throbbing, crying, nor hurting, counting up to ten to get his shit together and go back to the normal night schedule he’s always been accustomed to.

_ Dinner. Water. Teeth. Bath. Sleep. _

Closing his eyes, he wonders where Jin goes, without getting any single coherent idea from his brain; the beating heart caged by the ribs in his chest flutters, screaming truths and answers he decides it’s better not to hear.

Seokjin stays there, going over and over through what Namjoon just told him.

It could’ve meant something close to nothing for anyone, but to Jin… 

_ Nonsense. _

**(is it)**

He had never heard those words before.

_ You know…  _

**(do i)**

_ you’re brilliant. _

**(am i really)**

_ Don’t say that. _

**(i won’t)**

It doesn’t feel like an order, though, not to him.

It’s not something he’ll have to follow, receiving a punishment if he fails to do so.

This is different. This…

Somehow, this feels like the kind of love someone gives to you when they care.

**(does he)**

When someone worries for you,  
**(am i someone worth of it)**  
cherishes you,   
**(am i)** **  
** loves you.

**(do you?)**

Something deep inside of him knows he won’t say it ever again.

Not in front of him, not even to himself when he’s alone.

He’ll hold onto Namjoon’s words like a lifeline.

_ His hands are different. _

Namjoon stands in the middle of the warm water, his body already clean and hair so damp, it falls around his temples and neck.

He lifts both of his hands and sees them under the white light, noticing how he’s so used to seeing the scar in one of them, remembering the incident, how it hurt to heal it and not because of the wound itself nor the accident, prompted by his lack of expertise handling knives.

He has a good memory. If he were deft with pencils as he is with his words and his writing, he would be able to draw Jin’s hands by just retracing them under his eyelids; he’d draw hands that held his body more than once, hands he held so tight he thought they could break; hands he kissed and loved and dreamt about years after their last goodbye.

And those hands, the hands that held one of his moments ago, are definitely not the ones he loved and memorized that summer.

Namjoon bites his lower lip, clenching his hand in a fist.

_ He’s hiding something,  _ he concludes, and he turns to shut the faucet. Tiny drops of water fall under him, coming from his skin, his fingers, his hair or the faucet, and it even hurts, the way he hasn’t been able to get rid of the knot in his throat or the one holding his eyebrows together, too mortified at the thought of Jin holding a secret too big for his shoulders to hold.

Namjoon closes his eyes, but instead of sighing, he shivers at the cold wind sneaking from a slit he left between the arch of the bathroom window and the window, chilling his body from head to toe.

He wraps half of his body in a towel and gets out of the bathroom, panting, walking to his wardrobe quickly, closing the door of it and letting the towel fall down carelessly.

He grabs a pair of cozy pajamas, putting them on as fast as he can, and once he’s done he hugs himself in order to rub his arms, getting some warmth out of the friction of the fabric against his palms.

When he reaches downstairs, he sees Jin’s eyes looking at him, his face lightened up by the white light coming from his laptop. His lips are puckered up in a pout, stilled by his presence, and when Namjoon notices them, they continue on chewing onto something he finds himself too curious of.

He dismisses the thought, though, walking up to the thermostat panel on a column near the kitchen. “It’s getting colder every night. If you ever feel cold, you can regulate the temperature here.”

Jin hums.

“It’s not that cold in South Korea, apparently,” he says, still chewing, and Namjoon’s thoughts go back to whatever it is inside his mouth. “Are you sure you don’t wanna sleep upstairs?”

“Hundred percent,” he nods, sitting in front of him. Jin has his laptop on top of the table they dined in, reading something Namjoon’s also curious of, but he knows better and he won’t just barge in into his privacy, he’s not nosy—

“Seokjung hyung says hi.”

Namjoon is startled at the name, too forgotten and buried long, long time ago under a ton of information under Jin’s family name, but he manages to draw a shy smile on his lips. “How’s everything at home?”

Jin shrugs, not looking at him.

“Not that cold, they said. Mom is fine. Hyung, too. It’ll be a long winter without me there, but they’ll manage.”

Namjoon’s heart fills itself with a strange warmth.

“I’m glad they’re fine,” he says, and it’s true, but it comes short and it’s not a statement strong enough to hold what he’s still to say. “So…”

Jin lowers the screen of Namjoon’s laptop slowly, paying attention. “Yes?”

Namjoon swallows.

_ Are you leaving soon? _

_ Are you spending the winter here, with me? _

They lock their eyes on one another.

_ Are you aware of the way I would support you no matter what, on any kind of problem you have going on? _

Jin smiles, his eyebrows going up.

_ Are you lonely? Are you in pain? Do you need help? Do you need— _

“We should rest.”

_ Do you need… anything? _

Jin lets out a yawn, stretching his arms to both of his sides. “We should, yes.”

He gets up, followed by Monie, who had been resting on top of his feet this whole time, keeping them warm under his belly.

Namjoon sees him following Jin, passing by his side when he stops in the middle of the staircase, turning just in time to see him.

“Goodnight, Namjoon-ah.”

It never goes away; the adrenaline inside his heart, rampant; the sweat on his palms; the way he puppy-eyes him, asking questions inside his mind he won’t voice out yet; the lump in the middle of his throat; and the question he’s had roaming around him ever since that call… 

_ Do you need me? _

“‘Night, Jin.”

_ I think I do _

Her blue eyes follow him until he stops, sitting at the edge of the fountain inside their garden, and she finds it disgusting, that habit of his, smoking his lungs out as if his life depended on it.

She hugs her body after tightening up her robe, focusing on the small rectangle of light in front of the face of her husband, losing it when he starts calling somewhere.

Or someone.

And she knows damn well who he’s calling, she’s known for months; her heart doesn’t need to still every time he calls him, knowing his intentions will never reach him, for he’s done with him.

…and still, her heart lets go of her nerves when he mutters a solid ‘fuck’ under his breath, hanging up, just to chew on them again when the screen disappears against his cheek.

She’s smart enough not to bite her recently done nails, but it’s unconscious how she drives her fingers to the brim of her lips, ready to devour them, stopping just in time when he gets up, throwing his cigarette inside their fountain, this time cursing loud enough for her— and the neighbors— to hear.

She shakes her head. There’s no use in worrying, she decides, going back to bed.

As she finds her way back to her side, she lights up a small lamp on her nightstand that helps her pick a small, round pill from her jewel box.

_ Everyone knows they’re over,  _ she thinks as she tucks herself inside their bed, gulping the aftertaste of her sleeping medicine,  _ except him. _

It’s bitter, she concurs. Breakups are always bitter. But he shouldn’t have cheated on her in the first place, jeopardizing his job, his inheritance, their future.

If she pays enough attention, she can hear soft taps against a phone screen, fingers dialing a number over and over again; she can smell the scent of the brand of cigarettes he smokes, and the faint aroma of his cologne, lately mixed so naturally with the drinks from their cabinet, where he keeps his hard liquors.

Carolyn hums, starting to feel the haze of her pill kicking in.

_ Who would’ve thought I would marry someone so rich, yet so pathetic, he can’t even do wrong things right. _

She closes her eyes and falls asleep almost instantly.

Seokjung rereads the e-mail, tears in his eyes, voice too broken to finish reading it out loud to his mother, who ends up crying halfway from it; and although it is too short to her liking, it means he’s alive.

He’s eating again, he’s with someone else that is not Jongin, and most importantly,  _ he’s still breathing. _

That’s all she needs to keep on living. Knowing he’s alive.

She thanks the Lord, kneeling on the spot, hugging his oldest son, crying tears of joy, mumbling words so thankful in a language only a mother can decipher, she realizes right there, in the middle of Seokjung’s room, that for the first time in a long time, she’s consciously breathing again, aware of her arms, the tears she’s crying, and the body that aches and bleeds nothing but love for her family.

Sitting at the last row of one of the courtrooms he visits daily, hoping nobody in this room will look at him long enough to recognize him, he comes to the conclusion he’ll hate wood until the end of his days.

_ Think about it,  _ he’d said to his best friend.  _ We’re surrounded by people, stories, expensive clothes, but they change all the time, so fast, you don’t even get to register them completely inside the endless archive that is your mind; but wood? Wood is forever. It’s everywhere. Every corner you’ll ever find yourself trapped against, there’ll be wood. Waiting for you, like an old friend, waiting patiently until your last day on earth comes and you die; and when they bury you in a wooden casket, leaving you to smell nothing but the scent of it, you’ll find yourself facing it until eternity comes to reap your soul to begin again. Wouldn’t it suck balls, and wouldn’t it be too damn absurd, that— supposing the whole reincarnation-thing were true— we as lawyers had to come back to life as trees? _

His friend would laugh loud and long at that, although too grim to his taste, but finding interesting and not unusual at all that that was Sehun’s way of seeing life; it explained many things, they both knew: their careers, for example; the dry spell on Sehun’s love life; and his endless love for making crude comedy out of trivial things just as wood, death, or courtrooms— a place in which they usually found those two things combined.

_ Like this massacre, today. _

Sehun huffs a lock of hair falling over his forehead, reminding himself to make an appointment with his personal hairdresser; his eyes focus on the dark color of his hair, thinking that maybe it’s time to make some changes in it.

He pays almost no mind to the voices at the front of the room, voices he’s supposed to pay attention to since he’s to take note of everything.

Sehun huffs again, this time without any direction in particular, crossing one of his legs on top of the other. He places his left hand under his right elbow, positioning his hand on his chin, caressing it idly.

It’s almost like a carnage, a car crash accident he’s to witness, or being forced to relive over and over again those shameful memories from college he avoids at all cost.

Many of them cry while others yell, and he’s quick to get up when he sees the security guards intervening to separate a woman from a man that— he assumes— are related in some way.

He stops, though, at the sight of a child in the middle of a seat, too big in comparison to her body; her body shakes, held by another woman, her skin like tanned, expensive gold he’s gotten to rarely see in his life. She’s crying, and her hands shake in sync with the whole disastrous earthquake going on at the kid’s back, held tightly by her, not wanting the child to see more of it.

_ But she’ll never forget,  _ Sehun clicks his tongue.  _ Children never forget. _

Oh Sehun decides he’s seen enough.

He leaves the courtroom before anyone else, fueled by the uneasiness inside his stomach and the words of the judge. He fetches his phone from inside his suitcase, tilts his head to his sides, and walks towards the parking lot with his sharp pair of eyebrows framing his eyes, hardened by the despair he felt inside that courtroom, still lingering on his limbs even after he reaches his car.

Once he’s ready to go, he speed-dials him.

The call is instantly redirected to voicemail.

Sehun hangs up, clicking his tongue. “Stupid fuck.”

His fingers dial him again, this time typing the whole sequence of numbers.

_ Please leave your message after the tone. _

He huffs.

The lock of his hair falls over his forehead.

“It’s over,” he says, locking his jaw. “She lost.”

As much as he wishes to hang up, he decides to wait on the line, knowing he still has a few seconds to give him some piece of his mind. To tell him he’s an asshole, for example. To tell him he’s being the most unprofessional bastard on Earth, too.

But he doesn’t.

“I assume you’re on your way to Japan,” he sighs.

Seconds pass. He bites his tongue. He’s not a fan of lies, but his lifestyle has shown him differently, so he does what he does best, which is—

_ Taking a fucking bullet for you, you stupid fuck. _

“I hope you find him.”

He hangs up, dropping his phone on top of the co-pilot’s seat.

Sehun closes his eyes; he can’t see it, but the veins on his temples pop out, tension flushing every face feature he has and hardening every single part of his body.

_ Couldn’t you get your shit together, Kai? _

Dragging blood from his tongue by how hard he’s biting it, Sehun surprises himself when he hits the steering wheel with his hand opened, hurting it badly. Mumbling curses, he turns on the engine of his car. The purring sound it makes reminds him of the dormant wrath he feels on the daily, too, against what he does for a living.

_ Couldn’t it wait? _

Sehun accelerates.

He knows the answer to that question by heart; there’s no need for him to say it out loud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the slowest of burns, I know. But we'll get there eventually!!
> 
> Comments, questions, kudos, everything is appreciated!
> 
> Follow me for more updates [here](https://twitter.com/shampoofaeries).


	7. Overlap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _You may think you're way over that époque, Namjoon. But your heart is still there._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *pretends she's not looking at the latest _update date_ *
> 
> Sooooo... how long has it been? *heh* Good thing I don't know what time is anymore!!! YAY.
> 
> ...
> 
> _...tsk._
> 
> I'm so sorry for the delay. Many things happened these months, including this fic, so I'll list them quickly:  
> \- I changed my username from **monstersdimple** to **shampoofaeries**. This one fits better, me thimks.  
> \- I am sloooowly writing and updating since I moved in with my fiancé and there's just _too much going on._  
>  \- I know I said I wasn't going to add angst to this one chapter but... hey, at least we have Taekook! I... I guess that's something...  
> \- And last but not least...! I added a major important tag on this fic, a tag that may or may not put at ease your worries: _angst with happy ending._ I didn't want to spoil it yet but I guess it's a good thing to know since this is a heavy fic, heh.
> 
> Enjoy!

_Why do I still love you?_ _  
_ _Why do I sing about you?_ _  
_ _Why do I still wait for you?_

 _Sing about you, say “love you”,_ _  
_ _“babe, I love you”_

_Why I love you?_

_Why you…?_

**IU:** The Visitor

“How did it make you feel?”

Seeing him like that hurt like hell. Namjoon recalls the image perfectly. To this day, he still feels the heaviness inside his heart, the way his stomach clenched around wrong ideas and chewed on them with such intensity, he feels the urge to vomit.

The feeling comes to him and hits him like a wave, flushing his heart with a strange emotion he’d gladly name ‘sadness’ since he’s so acquainted with it already.

But Namjoon recalls something else. The taste of something venomous lingers underneath this one memory, something he’d never have the nerve to call ‘jealousy’.

That afternoon his eyes peeked out from his window, and he saw the small frame of the kid, hunched over his own self, waiting. He was sitting on their garden bench with both of his feet facing each other, too shy, too small, not giving away any hints of the man he would become one day. With his little heart engraved onto every sleeve he ever wore, holding both of his hands so tight, shaking in a way so delicate, Namjoon thought he was about to witness his half-brother breaking into a million pieces.

He thought of going downstairs, maybe apologize, but their father beat him to it, walking out of the blue—

“The green,” he recalls. “We never called it ‘the blue’, since he kept the garden so green, so lush, it was normal to see him coming out of it without prior notice, always at the right moment, the right time.”

There’s a small pause on the line, in which Namjoon takes a long breath, exhaling a part of his soul in every breath he lets out.

“The green,” the voice repeats; Namjoon can picture her nodding, too. “How was it? Describe it to me.”

Namjoon could hear them, even from upstairs, with his window closed. They were never silent. They were loud with everything they did, always, be it cackling at their inner jokes, beaming a bunny-teeth smile to the neighbours, or just being together.

“It was painful.”

_Kook?_

Jungkook’s shoulders didn’t straighten up, even with his father’s hand resting between his shoulder blades, reassuring him, _holding him._

Jungkook hushed something. A question. A complaint. A cry, maybe, since his father pulled him for a half-hug, silencing him with the warmth of his chest. Sungjin’s low voice was muffled because his mouth rested on Jungkook’s head, but the boy’s voice was loud and clear, and his words pierced Namjoon’s chest, standing so still, so far away from them, yet so close at the same time.

_He says his book is way more interesting than playing with me._

Silence again. Then and now.

“But it wasn’t true,” Namjoon shakes his head. “None of it. It was all inside my head.”

Sungjin hummed, resting his back against the bench. Namjoon was sure he could have spotted him if he lifted his head, but Sungjin never did. He rarely lifted his eyes from his son. Namjoon knew deep inside his chest he would never, ever do. He was _his_ father, after all. He was supposed to look after him, and him only.

_Did he really?_

Jungkook chewed on his lower lip before talking. He kept on doing that everytime he felt anxious…

_…no. But his eyes are always glued to those pages… I might as well start talking to his books, instead. I’m sure they would be more responsive than—_

**_Jungkook._ **

His father’s voice cut him out. It wasn’t the serious, down-to-earth voice he often used when he had headaches. It wasn’t the silk-like tone he used when he was feeling joyful or playful. “It was different. It was his _Father Voice.”_

_We’ve talked about this._

Namjoon frowns. Irene, on the other line, awaits.

 _What do we do against bad thoughts?,_ Sungjin asked.

Jungkook seemed to think, or that’s what Namjoon saw from his window. Barely. His sight had already started to worsen due to the papers he had to write late at night or the books he often buried his nose in.

Silence engulfed both of them, not making them feel uncomfortable nor anxious.

“It was a Jeon thing,” Namjoon says. “To remain this calm, even when holding a tempest inside their rib cages; to always have the right words slipping out from the tip of their tongues, along with the warmest smile I’d ever seen; to drift away and holding silence like a dear friend instead of a weapon with many, many ways of hurting the one who decided to do so instead.”

_We shrug them away._

Sungjin nodded, although not quite convinced.

_Exactly. But what about the trail they leave? What do we do with that?_

Jungkook sulked while looking for an answer, ruminating his thoughts to their very core.

“What do we do with that?,” Namjoon asks out loud, dragging a lazy, tired laugh along the line; it reaches Irene, his therapist, who’s about to ask him the same question but refrains herself from doing so when Namjoon starts speaking again. “I don’t know.”

Irene seems to smile on the other end of the line. “Did they know what to do?”

 _We follow it, so we can understand it,_ Sungjin had said. _With our heart in one hand and our head in the other._

“I think they did,” he nods. “Sungjin always had this way with words…”

“Sungjin?”

Sungjin had smiled back then.

_Want me to make you company while you’re at it?_

Jungkook looked at him. And he smiled shyly.

_Yes, dad. If it’s not too much to ask._

“Jungkook’s father,” Namjoon murmurs. “Sungjin.”

“Your stepfather.”

Namjoon lingers on that statement.

_No worries, Kook. I’m always here._

He nods, not convinced.

“Jeon Sungjin, yeah.”

_How bitter._

As soon as his impromptu therapy session ends, Namjoon goes to his bathroom to brush his teeth. The mint on his gums and his palate marks the end of the day for him. His reflection in the mirror displays a tired man, slightly hunched over himself, still sulking over stuff he can’t seem to get over with. Stuff he’s carried for a long run now; for years, if not a whole decade.

He looks at his dark brown eyes, at his eyebrows, and lowers his sight to see the small soap bar just by the sink. There, he finds his usual supplies: tubes of toothpaste, piled soap bars waiting to be used— but just one toothbrush holder, empty at the moment.

He frowns.

Yes, he wishes he could go back in time. Sometimes this desire rips him in half and makes him cry at night, wondering if he’d done any different, just to find himself thinking that no, it’d actually be the same, over and over. If he was to go back in time by jumping into a freaking wormhole, he’d probably end up doing the same shit over and over…

_You may think you're way over that époque, Namjoon. But your heart is still there._

Namjoon spits.

There’s nothing he can do about the past, he’s aware of that; that’s the first thing he actually reasoned after hanging up. But he’ll be damned if he’s stupid enough not to believe he can do something now.

His hand lingers aimlessly to one of his bathroom drawers, dragging a new toothbrush out of its plastic. He places the new one on the toothbrush holder next to his’, hoping it’s not a bold move to his new guest, too distracted by his phone screen.

A still wet thumb trails on the screen, going through tabs as if looking for something. Once he taps the one he’s looking for, his eyes linger on the screen as he spots _it._

Without hesitation, Namjoon taps on the ‘Buy’ button and enters his credit card number by memory.

It’s gonna be the end of him.

Whatever it is inside that dog’s mind, Jungkook knows it’s gonna end him.

His eyes follow the dark fur of his partner’s dog. It runs towards the biggest couch, the one he’s usually sitting on while he plays video games, and quickly hides under it.

Two small, dark orbs emerge from down below the couch. They stare at him with such wilderness, Jungkook knows it’s better not to mess with it.

With him. Yeontan.

“Tannie, come on, please,” he begs as he walks in his direction. “I need to get you ready for tomorrow. I won’t take you to the vet, I swea—”

The dog yelps, emerging completely and running to the kitchen as fast as he can. His little paws scratch the wooden floor and Jungkook swears he sees how the dog drifts when he reaches the curve that connects the salon with the kitchen, bumping one of his sides against the panel.

He huffs at himself for saying _The Forbidden Word._

Jungkook is tired. He never thought a dog could behave like a cat, look adorable just like a dog his size would, but the damn animal actually wants to be treated and acknowledged as a human, he’s sure of it; he’s seen it in his eyes. It’s like he speaks in a language he’s still yet to comprehend, changing his behaviour completely as soon as his partner steps inside their home.

Giving up, Jungkook thinks he’ll have to deal with his spoiled pup’s shenanigans later, just to remember that’s not going to be possible.

But the main door opens, followed by the usual noise Taehyung’s keys make, and Yeontan’s paws running from his hiding place— the kitchen, allegedly, or the laundry room (Jungkook might want to check on his clothes later on—, reaching his master’s arms in a blink of an eye.

“How’s my little creature?” Taehyung asks, petting Yeontan and squeezing him against his chest. “Did you miss me? Did you? I sure did.”

The dog barks and cries, licking Taehyung’s nose, pawing his chest and cheeks, trying to reach god-knows-what, too excited to function properly.

Jungkook sighs at them. All he wanted was to brush his hair, and the damned thing thinks he wants to take him as a hostage to bathe him, or worse— to take him to the vet. But he’ll never get him ready for his stroll tomorrow, nor ever, he thinks, looking at how Taehyung leaves little kisses on his head, so he surrenders.

_No wonder why he’s so spoiled._

Those words, of course, will never leave his mouth.

“How was the shopping?” he asks, kneeling to lift the grocery bags his partner brought in and left on the floor as soon as he saw the demonic furball named Yeontan. “Was it enough money?”

It takes a few moments for Taehyung to pay attention to the words of his boyfriend. He looks in his direction when he’s far enough, almost reaching the kitchen’s corridor, and follows him with Yeontan still tightly hugged between his arms. “No, but I chipped in; I bought extras of some stuff so it was on me.”

Jungkook stills by the counters, looking at Taehyung’s dog, and presses his mouth shut.

“C’mon. Don’t worry about that, Kook,” Taehyung shrugs; he knows he’s frowning by his silence, not having to look at him. “I just wanted a few things—”

“I’m sorry—”

“Kookie, please.”

Taehyung turns around to face him. They stare at each other in silence. Yeontan, still on Taehyung’s arms, pauses his devilish demeanour, knowing— somehow— something’s going to go off.

When the moment elongates more than they’d want to, Taehyung crouches to put down his dog.

“Commissions have been good, and I’m still waiting for the Academy’s word on the role I applied to. You don’t have to worry about money, Kookie.”

Still, there’s something in his gut that tells him he’s to be cautious, not to say skeptic, at Taehyung’s statement.

He’s still to finish the last year of his Digital Arts degree, and his job as a freelancer hasn’t done so well lately. Actually, it hasn’t resumed itself from its temporary hiatus— Jungkook thought it’d be easy to pick up his drawings once he started his postgrad studies, but a shit ton of things happened—

_Taehyung. Yeontan. Myself._

And it never did. His digital portfolio hasn’t been updated with the bunch of drawings and pieces he’s managed to scribble here and there, whenever he finds some minutes to actually sit down and work on them… 

And he knows his scholarship only covers his annual student fees and half of the department he started to rent with the help of his parents— which aren’t aware of the new addition to his place.

Adding two mouths to feed to his household is not something he planned, but that’s not a burden, no. It just happened, it felt right, and they’d never be a burden to him. If anything, they make his days go lighter, brighter, than they’ve ever been. They make him want to work harder and he knows he’s still to tell his parents about his partner, and he’ll eventually do so, but—

_I haven’t spoken to them in months._

“Are you worried about something?”

_They don’t know I’m struggling to balance my expenses. That my art is—_

He’s not happy with it, but he’s been working as a graphic designer for a small company that sells car parts for months now, when he would rather start his own brand, pursuing the dream he started to feed since he was a child. There are a lot of things he’d rather be doing instead of drawing car parts and taking pictures of pieces of metal and artefacts he’ll never fully comprehend.

There are a lot of things he’d gladly tell his parents about if only he knew they wouldn’t worry their asses off for him.

And it stresses him, knowing they’d probably welcome him with open arms and wise words and endless hugs that he misses like hell, it’s just—

 _They don’t know. They don’t know I’m with_ him.

He’s not happy with his discrete ass wanting to hide how he feels about people in this world. It shouldn’t be a secret, how he loves, or who he’s decided to love.

But it’s not Taehyung’s fault. It’s not even his fault, it’s just—

Jungkook frowns, but Taehyung beams a boxy smile at him, and it’s not easy to keep on sulking, Jungkook thinks; the corners of his mouth curve upwards… and it’s game over.

“No, TaeTae,” he smiles. “Everything’s okay.”

Taehyung smiles back, approaching the counter and taking the contents out of the paper bags.

Jungkook stands still on the same spot, looking at Yeontan going around in circles at Taehyung’s feet, bare.

He can’t help it but smile.

Taehyung, just like Yeontan, is going to be the end of him.

The sizzling coming from the pan distracts him from the trick Yeontan’s trying to catch his attention with. Standing on his hindquarters, he paws the air, asking for some of the rice his master is frying.

Not looking at him, knowing he better stay away from his cuteness in order to keep his diet safe, Taehyung whistles a low tune, preparing the meat he’s to add to the frying pan, when Jungkook steps inside the kitchen, looking for something.

It’s silent, really, how they treat each other inside their home. Taehyung remembers how his life was before moving in together, and it’s almost the same, if he’s to be honest, minus the part where he usually felt as if there were a hole somewhere, sucking the light out of him and leaving him feeling lonely on short, cold nights or long, hot nights during the summer.

His eyes reach the window over the small dinner table they own; the purple hues painting the night sky, darkening by the second, tell him it’s time to rush the dinner if they want to rest enough hours not to be cranky on Monday.

“Have you seen my charcoals?”

Taehyung turns around, leaving the spoon on the frying pan. “Your charcoals?”

Biting his lower lip, he looks under the fruit bowl, inside the microwave, and even inside the fridge for them. “I put them somewhere… I just can’t remember where.”

Smiling, Taehyung goes back to cooking. “You probably left them on your studio table.”

The studio table. A table they set up by Jungkook’s side of their bed, the only part of the house they can name ‘a studio’ since they can’t afford to accommodate one, not with the bills left to pay nor their plans for the winter.

“I already looked there,” Jungkook sighs, opening the doors of the counter located right by Taehyung’s legs. “I thought—”

Taehyung’s not blind to see it. There’s a small, yet noticeable trail of paws under his feet, a trail that gets lost inside the cabinet Jungkook has his head buried in.

He wants to be quick and tell Jungkook he’ll gladly look for them in the morning, that it’s probably not Tannie’s fault, but his boyfriend is quick to hold the dog near his face, his paws close to his eyes.

“Yeontan did it,” Jungkook thumbs one of Yeontan’s paws and shows it to Taehyung. It’s all black and dusty. “He took them, Taehyung. Again.”

“That’s impossible.”

“How is it impossible?” Jungkook questions, hands reaching his sides, letting go of the culprit. “His paws are completely stained with charcoal.”

“Well, his paws are black, Kook, yeah. But I’m sure he didn’t take them. He doesn’t like to eat those things. Acrylics, on the other hand…”

“I don’t have time for this.”

Jungkook leaves his side, then the kitchen, and Taehyung waits for the door to be heard, closed with so much force he’ll probably see the window by the dinner table shaking, but he’s surprised to see Jungkook’s figure coming inside the kitchen again.

Wearing a small, black backpack, he pockets some money inside his jeans and looks at Yeontan.

“He needs to be educated, Taehyung.”

The latter huffs. “Take my money. I’ll pay for it. I'll make sure to check out his bed later. If he took them, your charcoals are most definitely there.”

Jungkook and Taehyung take a moment to look at Tannie, who has his tongue peeking out, appearing innocent.

“It’s not the—” Jungkook runs his hands through his hair, exposing his forehead. “It’s not that. I—” Jungkook sighs, finally. “I gotta keep on working. I’ll run to the store to get some.”

He grabs his keys, making the pink bunny keychain bounce near his knuckles. Taehyung, endeared, recalls his own: a heart-shaped creature he bought for himself not so long ago, the first week they moved in together, knowing that, without the keychains, they’d probably lose their keys in an instant.

And that Tannie would probably have been involved in that, too… 

“Do you need anything?”

Taehyung looks at the frying pan, with a pang of guiltiness spreading across his chest. His eyes are smart enough not to go to Tannie’s, or else he’d excuse his dog once again, knowing he’s totally guilty of his devilish shenanigans and— by logic— Taehyung knows he’s guilty too of being too indulgent with him.  
He shakes his head. “You working on something?”

Jungkook nods halfway, not convinced. He murmurs a meh that slips out of his lips so discreetly, Taehyung feels like kissing it, all of a sudden.

He refrains himself, though. He knows Jungkook is in a headspace that has a No Tae Nor Tannie policy, Taehyung smiles and sees him leave, not before letting him know dinner will be ready when he’s returned and that he’ll wait for him.

Jungkook smiles at that, pulling his hoodie over his head.

Once everything’s done and the table is set, Taehyung sits on a chair, thumbing his phone without much thought. He sees notifications of the group he’s in, the one he uploaded Tannie’s video to, and smiles to see the people’s reaction towards his dog.

Yeontan barks, catching his attention, inquisitive. Taehyung bites his lip, and Yeontan barks again, followed by a small cry that, inside Taehyung’s head, is a petition to be lifted and carried.

Crossing his arms, Taehyung shakes his head. “No, Yeontan, you need to learn your place.”

Yeontan sits— much to Taehyung’s perplexion— and plops his entire but small body on the floor, lowering his head between his paws, looking at him with his round, sweet, puppy eyes.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” he scoffs, his eyes going back to the phone. “At the end of the day, you know I’m weak for him alright, but you’re still my number one.”

Yeontan only huffs as an answer.

“You need to learn your place, Yeontan. And this time, I mean it.”

Closing his eyes, the pup pretends he doesn’t hear it.

It’s impressive to him, how a book that looks so big can weigh almost nothing, while there are small books inside Namjoon’s shelves that weigh a lot.

Seokjin doesn’t get it.

Words, weight, paper. It’s all a mystery to him.

Going through Namjoon’s book collection, he’s lost as he tries to understand the hang of having too many of them. Looking back at Namjoon’s past and their own relationship, it makes sense. It’s what he studied and one of his biggest hobbies, and it’s probably the main reason why Namjoon is to wear a pair of thick glasses _—_ if not, contacts _—_ whenever he’s awake.

And he’s a reader himself; maybe not the passionate kind, true, but he’s had his fair share of books along with the books he had to read back when he was studying _—_

_(back home back when back to)_

Seokjin’s hand picks a book without really choosing, one with a butterfly on the cover. His feet trail idly as he reads its summary, drinking from a cup of tea Namjoon fixed for him before getting ready to grade some papers.

He sits on the largest couch, leaves his tea on the coffee table, and opens the book.

On the brim of his sight, as if hovering meters away and above him, practically inside his own very world, is Namjoon.

Seokjin doesn’t need to look at his direction to see the small frown on his brow, the thickness of his reading glasses and how they slide slowly on the bridge of his nose. He sees the white light coming from his laptop screen, and the small tower of papers he fidgets with every once in a while; the rustling of pages so quietly inviting him to keep going on his own reading, not bothered at all by the sudden silence they’re soon deep in… it relaxes him, somehow. Sharing a space that smells like him, holding something that belongs to him and he’s probably read before. Knowing he’ll be heard if he speaks; that he won’t find hurtful words if he dares to spend his time doing something else aside from _—_

_(don’t)_

Surprisingly, it’s not hard for Seokjin to shake his thoughts away from his head.

_(i’m no longer there)_

His eyes travel to the words on the pages before him, and the voice inside his head _—_ his own voice, although too faint _—_ starts reading.

_(i am here)_

Namjoon’s phone goes off with a piano ringtone he’s been too lazy to change. It fills the living room with notes that distract Seokjin at first, notes that go unnoticed by the actual phone owner, and it goes off a couple of times before he decides to slide the red dot on the screen.

Namjoon’s hand grabs it idly, not even looking at it, and lowers its volume to zero.

Seokjin does look at him with question marks painted on his brow and eyes, but Namjoon is too inside his own world, too accustomed to this strange dynamic he’s developed around that phone number that keeps calling him day and night, Seokjin thinks he’s immune to phone calls when he’s busy.

Deep, deep down, he thinks about that night, the night that he called him, and thanks destiny, god, or whatever there is listening from high above, that he wasn’t busy and he actually answered his call.

They both return to their duties without much thought, and their afternoon slides itself into a placid, silent night they didn’t plan at all, one that feels somewhat familiar, just like picking a habit that was once left to be forgotten.

Seokjin wonders if this is how it feels like, to be safe.

He lowers his sight to the lines on his book and continues reading.

He doesn’t know the answer, so he’d rather not think too much about it. Not when there’s something spreading inside his chest that expands and hugs his heart as if he weren’t miles and miles away from home.

Jungkook runs to the store.

Well, he jogs, actually. His tall sneakers bounce against the pavement, and so do the keys inside his hoodie’s pocket, keychain and all.

It’s not late and the store is still open when he arrives, so he barges in, wondering if the store has the brand of charcoals he usually draws with, thinking it’d be a shame not to complete at least one damn sketch tonight, something he knows could drastically change his mood into a more productive one if he does.

Not going as planned, his intention of finishing one more sketch from his latest collection makes him feel less disheartened by the small amount of time he actually invests on it. If he had the time, he would’ve already finished this collection _—_ _Past—_ and he probably would’ve been starting the next one he’s yet to plan _—_ the one named _Present._

The one he wants to dedicate wholly to him _—_

_taehyung_

If only everything goes as planned, of course.

Jungkook takes a moment to look for the materials he needs, chewing on his lower lip, and he takes several minutes without knowing he’s in the middle of two aisles and blocking the way when a man _—_ not taller than him, lest with those pair of platform sneakers he wears so often _—_ passes by his side while murmuring the lowest _pardon_ he’s ever heard.

It’s not his voice what catches his attention nor the way he dresses _—_ too uptownish to his liking, too formal to this hour _—_ but the _smell._

The stench of cigarette ashes and stale liquor fills his nose as soon as he tries to answer the man, already walking up to the counter to pay for something he’s still to ask for _—_

_cigarettes_

And he knows he’s right when he sees the store clerk reaching up for a carton of cigarettes he recognizes as the same as the ones his mother smokes every now and then, much to his own dismay.

Jungkook looks at him, walking properly and not looking a bit drunk _—_ contrary to the way he smells and the hidden sight of his eyes under a thick, dark pair of sunglasses _—_ and ultimately decides it’s none of his business.

That is until, when he’s done paying for the materials, trying to focus on the ideas he has in mind, he reaches the exit aimlessly just to bump against the same man, who’s now holding a cigarette between his lips, hands so shaky he’s clearly struggling to light it up.

“Hey,” his raspy voice reaches Jungkook when he’s about to turn and keep on walking his way home, stopping him. “Mind if I bother you?”

Jungkook is not stupid, but he has a big heart, and that has always been a problem with him. He doesn’t know him, he doesn’t want to know him nor know the reason why he’s so upset and so _—_

_broken_

Jungkook offers a helping hand _—_ two, actually _—_ and lights his cigarette with the golden zippo the man offers before pocketing it inside his coat.

“Thanks, man.”

Jungkook nods, offering a shy smile. “Sorry for blocking the way, sir, uh…”

But he’s shy to walk again at the sight of the man’s hand reaching for his sunglasses, sliding them across the bridge of his nose, showing him the redness on them and the most miserable look Jungkook’s seen.

Their eyes lock.

_wh_

“Are you, by chance, the son of Jeon Sungjin?”

_what_

Jungkook swallows and doesn’t answer, too puzzled and startled to decide if it’s completely normal for a total stranger to be asking him if he’s the son of his _actual_ father. Which can only mean the man already knows the answer, he just needs reassurance.

_why_

The man’s eyes _—_ chesnut-sized eyes, sharp on the edges, with hints of something aside from the misery he’s already noted _—_ trace Jungkook’s height from head to toe.

“You are,” he nods, quick to interrupt Jungkook’s train of thought. “I’ll be damned. City’s a goddamn napkin.”

He turns his back on Jungkook, leaving him there, standing in the front of the store’s door, blocking the way once again, holding nothing but a small recycled bag in one hand and the faint, ghostly weight of a golden zippo on the other.

Dormant, yet so alive and ravenous, ready to devour him, the city swallows him.

Jackson lights another cigarette, sobered up and nauseated enough by the stench he’s carried with him for days, and sits on a bench, discreetly, to think.

As people pass him by, he puffs away, and so does his thoughts; too entangled with whatever he’s feeling these past few days and with so many things to think, buried into things too messy to take account of, he’s unaware of the way his eyes begin to cry again at some point, his face already accustomed to the small frown in the middle of his brows, and the pout his mouth makes involuntarily.

The urge of calling him pops inside his mind once again, but///////

_///////when will you learn?///////_

So does the question she asked him before seeing him leaving for the rest of the weekend, three days ago.

He swallows his vile for the tenth time on the same day and, instead of calling his number just as he’s done for the past months, he just sits there///////  
_///////he’ll bend you and break you, you know it///////  
_and cries  
_///////you have no other option, this is your life now///////  
_and _thinks._

He’ll never finish what’s due for Monday. Not at this pace, not when he’s adding things to a shopping cart and doing a list of groceries on the go of things he doesn’t need.

Namjoon’s eyes surf the supermarket’s website and he clicks on the Garden section by instinct. There has to be something he’s missed on his latest visit or products they only sell online, and he wants to see it.

_Some flowers could do me some good._

His thoughts land on the Moonlight flower arrangement he’s settled on his desk, and he smiles. It’s not withering yet, but it’ll do so eventually, so he needs to be prepared.

He hates to see it. To see his own flowers dying irremediably, helplessly, since that’s their natural lifespan.

Time kills them, little by little, and he’s to mourn it every time in silence, bathing his senses in a bittersweet feeling that’s been roaming around his neck for days, ever since _—_

Namjoon looks up to see his friend, now sleeping on the opposite couch he’s in, and his mind is far, far away when he notices it.

The book he’s holding.

He sees the book he picked, the way he’s holding it, the _—_

_Fuck._

The copy isn’t his, but he knows the face of the owner by memory. He doesn’t need to open it to see the annoying dog ears every fifteen pages, small yet noticeable coffee marks on the paper, and the scribbled notes he wrote down whenever he felt confused about facts, dates, or names, tattooed on them with elegant and sharp calligraphy he fell for (and also learned to hate) so soon.

_Charcoal fades away. Ink is forever._

Namjoon closes his eyes, but the image doesn’t go away.

_Nor his questions. His obvious questions…_

“What would you do if you were to spend the rest of your life in prison?”

Namjoon’s head shot up, finding his mind quite estranged at the question.

Jackson laid on the couch, holding the book he was reading against his chest; his hand rested on top of the book’s spine, covering the title, but Namjoon knew exactly which book he was reading.

_Papillon._

The one he couldn’t seem to finish, too distracted to focus on it. The one he’d tell his students to read and analyze while he spent most of his nights messing around with his partner instead of grading papers and actually reading it.

Jackson’s eyes looked at him with curiosity but _—_ and Namjoon knew him so well _—_ he was sure the way he looked at him was more of a kind of post-coital laziness and tiredness, something that would eventually cause him to doze off with the book resting on his chest.

He was wearing nothing but a pair of slacks and two or three bite marks around his neck.

Namjoon also knew Jackson’s mind was restless, full of hypothetical questions and imaginary scenarios that often tested him and brought his wits to quick themselves, ready to snap back at whatever he threw in his direction.

That’s how they usually bantered with each other. Especially after they’d had their fair share of pleasure, followed with a small round of passing a blunt between their fingers and mouths.

“Why would I have to spend the rest of my life in prison, in the first place?” one of Namjoon’s eyebrows twitched upwards, giving him a smug look. “What am I being blamed for?”

Jackson took his time to answer but ended up pointing at the book with one his free hand. “Something you didn’t do, of course.”

Namjoon dropped whatever he was doing _—_ probably fidgeting with the hem of his sweatpants, or going through the never-ending list of emails he was still to answer over his phone _—_ and turned in his seat to face him.

“Why would I get into that kind of situation?”

Jackson huffed. “Play along, would ya?”

Namjoon couldn’t help but smile. “Okay. I’m being charged for something I didn’t do. That’s the whole setting, right?”

“No, no. You’re guilty of something you didn’t do.”

Namjoon frowned as an answer and elaborated on that after seeing the serious expression on his boyfriend’s face. “That makes no sense.”

Another huff, followed by a pair of chesnut-shaped eyes, closing themselves with desperation. “You’re impossible.”

“Hey,” Namjoon got up and walked towards the couch they’d been on minutes before. He tapped one of Jackson’s feet for him to lift them up so he could take a sit. He didn’t, too stubborn and annoyed at his boyfriend’s reluctance, so he pretended to resume his reading, covering most of his face with the book. “I’m trying to play along, as you said.”

The only answer coming from him was silence. Namjoon stared at the cover of the book, his eyes following the shape of the butterfly on it, tracing the shape of Jackson’s fingers once he found the cover too boring to be stared at.

“Jackson.”

No answer.

Namjoon smiled, nonetheless. His feet were quick to walk past the couch, prompting his boyfriend to look at him, too curious to keep his act, and he reached for the pack of cigarettes placed on top of some books.

He took one out of the pack with his left hand, pocketed his right one inside his jeans, and handed him a lighter with it.

“Cig?” Namjoon beamed at him, smiling.

Third huff. No eye-rolling. Just a pair of two eyes closed, surrendering.

Jackson placed his bookmark inside the book, leaving it on top of the coffee table, discarding it for the time being.

“You never play along with me,” he murmured, placing the cigarette between his lips. He lighted it up, dragged air, then exhaled. “Have you always been this boring, Love? If I’m to spend the rest of my days with you, you better…”

Namjoon felt electricity going through his veins as Jackson’s voice lowered itself more and more, declining into a thick silence none of them dared to break.

Something inside of him, something stunned _—_ his heart, probably _—_ , felt like running away. Something burned on the soles of his feet. Something ached inside his beating heart.

Fueled by fear, he wanted to change the subject. He wanted to let it pass.

But he smiled deeply as Jackson’s words resonated inside his chest. The effect of the weed they’d smoked often calmed him and made him feel fuzzy, hazy, on the inside, but he was sure there was something buried deep inside the pet name Jackson had given him that made his heart aflutter, the words he’d just said, the way he turned around, realizing the things he had just said.

He saw the panic inside his eyes and tasted in the air the same electricity that ran inside his heart and body. He’d assumed Jackson was obviously going through some kind of panic just like his’, so he didn’t let it pass.

He wasn’t going to do that.

Namjoon knew there was no way to recover from that. He had no snarky comeback, no way of twisting his boyfriend’s words against him, he knew no words that could help him from the leap of faith his heart had decided to take by the second he’d heard Jackson said that _—_

_...if I’m to spend the rest of my days…_

Be it a joke, the way they teased each other, or the chemicals released on their bodies after a semi-rough session of making out and boldly fucking _—_ as Jackson often called them _—_ , Namjoon was helpless.

He looked straight into Jackson’s eyes before he closed them at the sight of the flame lighting the other end of his cigarette, tightly secured between his lips.

“Jackson?”

The acclaimed huffed on the end of the cigarette and pursed his lips against it as he managed to mumble an apology as he tried to make the lighter work.

_He was nervous. His hands tend to shake when he’s nervous._

His fingers fidgeted with the damn lighter, trying to light his cigarette completely once and for all.

“Jackson.”

A puff of smoke coming out of his mouth made them know it was time to talk about it.

Jackson’s hand lowered from his lips, taking his cigarette away from his face. “Love, I _—_ ”

But Namjoon was one step ahead of him.

“Move in with me.”

There’s a cigarette burn on the carpet, right below Jin’s shoe. He doesn’t have to move it to see it; it’s imprinted on his brain, along with the moment the cigarette fell from his hand, prompting them to forget about Namjoon’s proposal for a moment.

_He didn’t say no._

Namjoon’s eyes shoot up to see Jin’s body, resting on top of the couch on the other side of his living room, and sighs, closing his eyes.

Everything blurs inside his mind, mixing colours, images and scents he’d love to forget.

Namjoon is not a fan of leaving everything on fate and he doesn’t believe in signals. He’s smarter than that, or at least that’s what he thinks. He’s a skeptic, rational man, and he won’t waste his time trying to connect dots that are not meant to be connected.

Coincidences happen all the time. Odds are never in one’s favour, and if one’s smart enough and drives away from them, leaving them alone, not messing with them, then the realization of not being able to control shit hurts less over time.

Or at least that’s what he’s been trying hard _—_ so hard _—_ to tell himself as he sees Jin’s hand on top of the book’s spine, holding it dearly against his chest, although fast asleep. The peace on his face, his mouth barely open, the little cloud of hot air coming out of it…

_This is just a coincidence._

But the realization of this very moment hits him and he realizes, too, that months ago he’d had the embodiment of what he thought was the love of his life on top of that couch, bare-chested and still heavily-breathing after they’d spent the whole afternoon loving each other.

_No._

He recalls the inflexion in his voice as he proposed to move in with him.

_He didn’t say yes, either._

The pressure inside his chest constricts his airways as he gasps for air.

_And then it was over._

Jin shifts in his sleep, but Namjoon’s sight is blurred into an abyss of memories that overlap with reality.

Drops of sweat trail down his temples, his spine.

_I need to call her. I need to tell Irene—_

_///////I wanted to tell you. I wanted to///////_

A ripe sweetness inside his cheeks cut his mind in half, and the wounds on his head cascade down his nape, his back, his shoulders.

Seokjin believes he’ll taste it at some point. The metallic aroma of blood, the rusty aftertaste it leaves on the back of the tongue; and he’ll see it, the red staining it all, ruining another dream of his with the usual colours of his nightmares _—_

But that flavour never comes. Instead, Jin tastes something different.

It’s spongy, almost like a cake, but it’s not a cake at all. He knows his recipes well.

**fruity**

The word tingles on his tongue, pleasant to his stomach as soon as it drops there. He swallows it with joy, pretending he chews it so he can taste more of it, closing his eyes and hoping the rest of his senses, except taste, will disappear on command so he can focus on whatever is going on inside his mouth.

It melts slowly and he drinks from it with such thirst, his mind is long gone in a second; still drinking and with his eyes firmly closed, he names it.

**patbingsu**

The dessert they enjoyed together that summer.

His eyes open up as he feels the laugh coming from the bottom of his stomach, bubbling its way up through his throat, letting itself out in a smile he feels estranged to, and he hears it:

_you’re so shy_

Seokjin places a hand on his mouth, not wanting to feel that unnerving sensation again but not disturbed at all by it; the voice is not his’.

It’s much graver than his’, much calm, sweet, and it comes in a language he never mastered but learned on the go.

**namjoon?**

He covers his mouth, though, and the fire on his cheeks help him understand he’s actually covering it because he’s embarrassed, he’s suddenly so

_so shy, look at you_

He’d like to tell him to stop circling around him, hovering with this calm aura it exudes around him, almost hugging him with a warmth he hasn’t felt for years.

He would love to tell him to stop so he can reach him and hold on to him like a lifeline, as he’s done with his words lately, as he’s done with all the pleasant memories they share and are yet to be rediscovered, he

_are you having fun?_

Seokjin chokes on the taste inside his mouth, formerly acknowledged as sweet, now rotting his teeth to their core, aching on his belly, going stale in a matter of seconds.

It doesn’t matter. The hand around his neck, crawling through his jaw and forcing him to taste the usual, disgusting aroma of this man, makes everything pleasant go away.

**_ARE YOU_**

The second hand that held him by the hair many times finds its way around his neck, reminding Seokjin it’s time to surrender to it, to let the natural course and storyline of his own nightmares develop as it always does _—_ with its variations _—_

He’d love to answer him. He’d love to look him in the eye, he’d love to say his name

**jongin**

and ask him why. Why now. Why even overseas, undercover and leaving almost no trace.

**why**

Why won’t he leave him alone, not even in here, in a realm that’s supposed to be his’ and his’ only. Why has he haunted his mind for so long and with such intensity, he’s sure he’ll never go back to what he was in the first place.

Why won’t he let him get past all this, why won’t he drop him on the ground like other times, left there to starve and weep on his own for weeks until he had the nerve to come back on his knees and a bouquet of roses

**WHY**

Tears escape from his eyes, differently this time, as his eyes look around to find the slightest trace of the sweet dream he was having.

Then he remembers.

His lifeline.

His friend.

His home.

**namjoon?**

He can’t find him.

And Seokjin can’t help it. He’s unable to refrain himself from saying the name that makes him feel at home. The name of the man that’s been keeping him safe without knowing; the name of his first, big heartbreak and the name of his first true love.

The name of the man that he thinks is capable of helping him heal.

The name that once meant for him the same emotion as the one that fills his heart when he sees a happy ending, no matter where.

His own happy ending, perhaps?

The hand constricts around his neck, withholding the oxygen he thinks he needs to live.

A different ending. Just not this one.

Seokjin starts sobbing as he remembers the days and nights of that one summer

**namjoon**

as he calls him

**namjoon**

on a loop that makes the man in front of him

**namjoon**

nothing but a mess of rage

**joon**

and hatred

**joon**

towards him,

**JOON**

the person he once swore he’d love forever.

Seokjin opens his eyes at the smell of someone’s mouth on top of his.

Namjoon’s hand rests on his chest, softly telling him to wake up and please, please, sit up straight so he can wake up completely.

His breath falls on his face, warm and with a hint of coffee, and he blinks once, twice, as he rests his own weight on his fists so he can sit up.

A bigger, but not uncomfortable weight on top of his legs let him know it’ll be difficult, but he manages and Seokjin sees Monie, lying on top of his pants, looking back at him with an expression that can be read as worry.

_(but that’s impossible, that’s)_

His fists are quick to dry the tears from his eyes.

“Are you okay?”

_(shit)_

The question lands on him, heavy as it is, but he manages, too, to nod.

It’s of no use, to keep the act. Seokjin knows it. He knows he saw it. 

He’s cornered by himself and there’s no other way to run nor a series of actions and phrases he’s learned to use in this kind of situation.

Namjoon must’ve seen him struggling in his sleep, the only thing to do now is to accept it.

Namjoon will know if he’s lying. Seokjin is sure.

“I will be.”

But that’s okay. He just needs to readjust himself to reality. To ground himself. He sits up properly, lets Monie down and starts stretching, he could prompt Namjoon to give him some distance.

Except none of them seem to find Seokjin’s proximity uncomfortable at all, nor seem to care about it.

He thinks it’s time to talk, then. That always makes people move. To tense themselves and act. To keep the show going, for god’s sake. Anything.

“What time is it?”

Namjoon checks the clock on top of the fridge, still not moving. “It’s almost dinner time. Jin…”

Seokjin clears his throat, facing Monie and pointing at him.

“Monie must be hungry. Aren’t you?”

Hearing his words, Monie barks, wagging his tail.

Seokjin avoids eye contact with the man he just dreamed of and gets up to feed Monie, remembering well where he put his food on the cleaning spree he went on days ago.

_(i just need to ground myself)_

Without much thought, he decides he’ll feed Monie and then take a shower.

A long one.

_(that always does the trick)_

He’ll swallow the lump in his throat until Monie finishes, then he’ll climb the stairs and lock himself inside Namjoon’s bathroom.

It relaxes him. To think he still has a small spot to which he can escape, and do whatever he needs to feel better, although painful, he’s not going to lie.

A smile is drawn on his lips as he sees Monie’s snout going wild with the little pieces of dog food, making a mess of himself without caring at all.

By instinct, he cards his fingers through his fur, enjoying the sensation, the fake feeling of reassurance he gets every time he sees Monie, as if he spoke to him  
_(it’s going to be okay)  
_in a language he never knew he’d learned.

Seokjin thinks of  
_(home)_ _  
_ _(him)_ _  
_ Jjangu, and his smile  
_(why)_ _  
_ fades away.

It’s with a heavy heart that Namjoon sees how Jin sits on the floor, side by side with Monie, joining him while he eats his food, both of his paws sprawled on both sides of his little metal dish.

 _He must’ve had a nightmare,_ he concludes.

His eyes follow Jin’s hand, caressing Monie’s head, but it isn’t fear, no.

It’s the way he’s smiling that breaks him.

That’s not a happy smile.

_It’s something else._

It’s a hard try that falls between despair and sadness. It’s a desperate attempt to hang on to something external, something that’ll never hurt him the way he’s been hurt before, longing the small yet so pure happiness his dog usually radiates.

_He’s…_

Namjoon feels the realization spreading across his chest, hugging him tightly with a warmth that tugs a knot he didn’t know he had inside his belly; he turns his back on them, going back to his spot behind his laptop, and tries to focus on the list of books he’s to deliver tomorrow.

_He’s gone through something._

As much as he wants to, he’s not capable of finishing the list.

He thinks he’ll work something out on the go, too busy to think about something else that’s not the man in the middle of his dining table, telling him he’s going to head to bed early since he’s feeling strangely tired and giddy from his nap.

He blames his jet lag.

_You’ve always been bad at lying, Jin._

And Namjoon nods, nonetheless.

He doesn’t get it though, so he prays in silence to the force beyond his comprehension for some kind of enlightenment, if it’s not too much to ask, as he sees Jin’s body disappearing through the stairs’ corridor on the second floor.

It never comes. That enlightenment.

Namjoon doesn’t believe in miracles nor magical, earth-shaking epiphanies, either, just like he doesn’t believe in fate.

He’s too shy and embarrassed to guess he just thought it was worth the try.

In the end, to help him, to help Jin, he’d try anything.

If only he knew _how._

With Yeontan snoring by the ottoman, where he usually rests, Jungkook can finally ease himself into his night mood.

He drew something he’s not happy with but he’s sure he’ll return to it in a better mood tomorrow. He plans on spending his afternoon at his school’s library where nobody can disturb him, and then he’ll give his own drawing The Talk.

Jungkook smiles to himself. Taehyung, by his side, scrolls through his phone.

There’s a website he often visits and pays attention to as if his life depended on it, but he hasn’t caught the name yet. The only thing he knows is, Yeontan is _the_ sensation there. Taehyung uploads videos of him every once in a while, not answering comments at all nor giving likes or hearts to any other pet,

_Tannie wouldn’t stand it_

and it’s known that Pomeranians have a thing that makes people go wild with their cuteness.

Looking at the ceiling with that in mind, Jungkook thinks of himself, his past, and the non-existent history of pets around the house.

He frowns.

He didn’t like noise, Jungkook recalls. His books… His readings were so important, he didn’t want pets around the house. What an ass _—_

_**Jungkook.** _

The voice of his father cuts his thoughts in half, prompting his mind to go all blank.

Even to this year, even to this point in his own adulthood, Sungjin still manages to keep him on track, even at a distance Jungkook is incapable of measuring.

He sighs, then turns around to see his partner’s face.

“Taetae?”

Taehyung hums as an answer, looking at him for a second, then returning to the screen without paying him much mind.

Jungkook smiles. “Could you do me a favour?”

Taehyung nods. “What is it, Kook?”

Jungkook bites his lip before answering.

“Something got sold,” he drops without much importance. Taehyung turns to see him, blocking his phone and shutting off the only source of light inside their bedroom. Still, with some light coming from the street, they spot each other’s eyes.

“Kook, that’s great!”

The acclaimed scoffs, but nods a little. His cheeks burn with embarrassment, heated up at the thought of their own proximity on top of a surface they’ve shared for weeks now.

“It’s… something, yeah,” he lifts his hand and scratches the back of his neck. He’s learned to love his own shyness, but it still manages to get on his nerves, not able to hold it back on command. “It needs to be delivered, could you…?”

“Sure. Where?”

The promptness of his answer, the warmth of his breath overlapping with his’, and the hand that crawls on one of his sides hugging him into a tight embrace, it all makes him flush.

He’s glad there’s not much light, or else his partner would notice the mess he is by just having him this close.

You’re so, so gone, Jeon Jungkook, he thinks to himself.

“Brighton College.”

Taehyung nods, distracted by the moles on Jungkook’s face, and asks: “What is it? What got sold?”

Jungkook tells him, and Taehyung can’t help it but beam a big, boxy smile at him. 

He looks at him, endeared, and nods. “Consider it done.”

Jungkook purses his lip into a tiny, fine line, nodding too. He pulls away from Taehyung’s embrace to place the bed's covers on top of their bodies and is quick to shit to his right side and into the position he finds the most comfortable to sleep with when he’s with Taehyung.

“Ready to sleep?” Taehyung’s voice comes low, almost a hush, and Jungkook whispers back a sleepy affirmation.

The light from Taehyung’s phone tells Jungkook he’s setting his alarms. Endeared, he pushes himself against his partner’s chest, trembling a little bit when he feels the light going off with the faintest click, and it’s only a matter of seconds for him to feel his boyfriend’s arms hugging him from behind, pressing a small kiss on his nape, smelling the tips of his hair before sighing: “Goodnight, Koo.”

“Goodnight TaeTae.”

They hear nothing but Yeontan’s snores for the next minutes, in which Taehyung’s mind starts to drift away to his own realm of dreams, but he’s pulled back to reality when he hears Jungkook’s voice calling him in the dark.

He opens one eye. “Come again?”

He hears Jungkook’s laugh and pictures him smiling, his bunny-teeth showing between his pursed lips.

“I said thank you, TaeTae,” he repeats, linking his left hand’s fingers with Taehyung’s hand, now hovering on top of his belly.

Taehyung presses another loving kiss on Jungkook’s nape. “Don’t mention it.”

A few more minutes pass, but Jungkook doesn’t close his eyes. It’s not until he hears Taehyung’s snores mixed up with Yeontan’s that he lets out a small sigh.

The hot breath of his boyfriend against his neck keeps him awake most nights, restless, with a fire inside his loins that could set on fire the whole room if left unattended, but tonight’s not one of those occasions.

He moves his right hand to link it with his left, enclosing Taehyung’s hand between them. He pulls it towards his mouth, leaving a small kiss on it.

“I love you, TaeTae.”

There’s no answer. The humming sound of Jungkook’s minibar, the cozy snoring coming from Taehyung’s nose, London’s night sounds locked away from his room, it all engulfs him, making him feel calm.

_Goodnight, TaeTae._

This is his home, after all. These arms, these sounds, this _love._

Jungkook’s heart feels full. His mind travels to the faces of the people he loves the most in this world, as it always does every night before sleeping.

_Goodnight ma, pa._

Deep in his slumber, Yeontan yelps faintly, moving his paws in a small twitch.

Jungkook smiles, closing his eyes.

_Goodnight to you too, Tannie._

**to:** moonlightsonata94@mail.co.uk

 **from:** headeditor@hw.co.uk

**Night night Joon-ah. Here’s the digital copy we’re to print next week. We want you to check it out first since we keep in mind our writer’s will before ours, always. That’s our brand, after all, innit?**

**If I’m to be honest, darling, I did most of the work on this one. The people here didn’t even bother to check it out since I hoarded it like the jealous friend I am. I hope you don’t mind and I hope from the bottom of my heart I didn’t go too hard on it.** **  
** **That’s a lot of hope in a whole-ass sentence. Good grief, if that weren’t my signature, either, I’d be ashamed.**

**Thank God I was born without it. Both shame and grief. Just hope here, my man.**

**Ahem.**

**Good work, as always. Send it back ASAP so we can begin. Notes, tears, and screams are well received.**

**P.S. Have you thought of a cover, by the way? We have some dummies ready but we’ll use whatever you want if we find it fitting.**

**Hugs and kisses,** **  
** **H🥺BI**

Namjoon can’t help but smile. The emoji right in the middle of his signature always melts his heart. _As if he weren’t one of the most intimidating personalities in London,_ he laughs to himself.

He opens the file with a double-tap and that’s all he needs for his mind to go blank.

_This is…_

The red lines underneath some of his words, the notes on the side of the document…

Namjoon blinks once, twice, taking it all in.

_This is mine._

As if it were smiling, the document _—_ a medium-length piece made of digital words, past tears, restless nights and heartbreak _—_ looks back at him, as if daring him to do something.

Namjoon inhales deeply.

_This is it._

Seokjin stands in the middle of the living room looking at Namjoon.

It’s not the way he’s sitting nor the darkness engulfing everything around him except his face, but the way his eyes closed and he’s dozing off in front of the computer that makes him let out a little laugh.

Before he can think straight, he walks towards him slowly, joining him. He intended just to get himself a cup of water, but when he realizes he’s sitting in a complicated posture that will fuck up his back the next morning, he figures the best thing to do is to take his computer away from him and help him to lay down on his mattress.

(or his bed)

With his cheeks burning for some reason he pays no mind to, Seokjin takes the laptop away from his hands, closing it and making sure the charger isn’t disconnected, placing it on top of the coffee table in front of him.

Namjoon begins to lay his own body on the couch, with both of his eyes still closed and a small frown painted on his brow.

Seokjin looks around to find something to cover his body with and reminds himself to set up the thermostat hot enough so he won’t get sick. Once he finds a piece of fabric _—_ a shawl, he thinks _—_ he places it on top of Namjoon and sees how he hugs it and smells it.

A small snore comes from Namjoon’s nose, and Seokjin knows his job is done.

He turns away… 

_(???????)_

Seokjin freezes, and instinctively looks at Namjoon’s phone.

The device starts to buzz its way out of the table and the light of its screen shows him an incoming call.

**WANG**

Seokjin swallows.

_(should i)_

Namjoon groans in his sleep.

Seokjin grabs the phone and taps on it.

“Joon?” the voice on the other side of the line comes late as if it weren’t expecting an answer. “Joon, Love, you picked up. I… I don’t know what to say, please don’t hang up, I wasn’t _—_ ”

_(!!!!!!!)_

“Don’t hang up, Namjoon, I can explain, Love, please _—_ ”

_(Love)_

Seokjin hangs up.

He drops the phone on the floor, still not sure as of why he picked up in the first place.

Seokjin finds his way out of the living room, climbs the stairs, and locks himself inside his room.

Namjoon’s room.

He falls to the ground as soon as he closes the door.

And after thinking it thoroughly, while looking at his hands and trying to make something out of the voice of that man, he exhales.

“Shit.”

He should’ve known. He should’ve asked. He’s meddling, stepping in the way, he’s a burden.

He’s _—_

Seokjin looks at his wrist, at his forearm, and grits his teeth.

He shouldn’t have come here. It wasn’t a good decision. He should’ve stayed _—_

“Fuck.”

He should’ve known. But no. The only thing he could think of was saving his own ass.

_“Fuck.”_

It’s going to be a long night.

 _A bad one,_ he presumes.

Deep down, he knows  
_(i never should've come here i never should've i)_  
he's right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are well received~.  
>   
> Ramblings between updates @ [TWT](https://twitter.com/shampoofaeries)

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of the first longfics I'm planning to write in 2020! I hope you enjoy it.  
> 


End file.
